"What have I done, Tony?" he asked after a pause, looking up with a dental smile.
"You have presumed to employ Miss Treharne's first name, after having met her, I believe, not more than three times. Don't do it again," replied Mrs. Treharne in a tone that, while quiet enough, had a ring in it that was utterly new to Jesse. Jesse, seeming by his manner to take the rebuke in a chastened spirit, occupied himself again with the spaniel's silky coat.
"I seem," he said, finally breaking the oppressive silence, "to have found you in a somewhat Arctic humor. Still, that should not be allowed to congeal an old friendship. It cannot be that you, too, are beginning to misunderstand me, as Miss Treharne has from the beginning?"
"Miss Treharne should not have been allowed to meet you at all," returned Mrs. Treharne. "I leave you to imagine how bitterly I condemn myself now for not having at least screened her from that."
"You say 'now,'" said Jesse. "Why, particularly 'now?'"
"That," replied Mrs. Treharne, "is my affair."
The time, of course, had arrived for Jesse to make the best of a poor departure. The man, however, was of a surprising obtuseness as to such details.
"And yet I came this evening," he said, adopting a tonal tremolo which was intended to convey the idea that he was sorely put upon, "to offer, through you, any poor courtesies that I might have at my command to make Miss Treharne's stay in England agreeable."
Mrs. Treharne shrugged impatiently.
"Spare yourself these posturings, if you please," she said. "Miss Treharne has made it plain enough that she detests you. Are you waiting to have me tell you that I applaud her judgment?"