She stretched out her hands, half-laughing, half-crying, and Christian went across to her and caught them in his own.
“Oh, Nettie, how mad you are!” he exclaimed, divided himself between laughter and tears. “You foolish, ridiculous, utterly adorable thing! As if you’d ever be turned from here while Crump is Christian’s roof!”
But Anthony stepped forward with a certain dogged resentment, his quiet face working painfully.
“All the same, it’s done, sir, asking your pardon! It’s not true that William Lyndesay would have turned me out. He never gave me a wrong word. But neither Anthony Dixon nor aught that belongs to him needs telling to go more than once. Nettie comes home with me to-night to my mother, and while I live she never crosses the door again!”
“Come, Anthony—take time to think——!” Christian expostulated, hurt yet conciliatory, but Dixon waved him aside.
“Where’s your cloak, lass?” he said to Slinker’s wife, and with a low laugh of pure happiness she caught up a rug that Christian had given her at Christmas, and threw it round her, following Dixon to the door. As he opened it, she turned abruptly, and took a last look at the rigid figure by the fire, its scornful eyes following her with open hatred, and for a long moment the two women stood staring at each other across the hall. Then Slinker’s wife uttered a passionate little sound, part sorrow and part justified relief.
“You never really loved me,” she said, “never, never—except as Stanley’s chattel! I’m sorry, I think, but it makes things easier.” Then she stepped back to Christian, caught his hand and kissed it. “Good-bye, Youngest One! Don’t forget me. I’d stay with you if I could, but I’m called home, and you won’t grudge me that. Oh, Laker dear, at least there’s one lost dog no more a-seeking!”
At the foot of the steps he saw Anthony throw his arm around her, and Nettie lay her face on his breast; and his eyes were wet when he stepped inside and shut them out.
CHAPTER XXI
His mother had disappeared when he came back into the hall, but Rishwald, emerging from the library, was struggling into his coat. He asked for his car, checking Christian’s apologies with a certain amount of dignity, and, in spite of his disastrous evening, shaking hands warmly with his somewhat forlorn-looking host, who smiled dismally when he had gone. No doubt he would find adequate consolation in his Tobies and Queen Annes.