“You’d better tell him to clear out,” she said, coldly.
He turned and looked out of the window. She sat flushed and erect for a long time. At length her father turned to her, looking really malevolent.
“If you won’t,” he said, “you’re a fool, and I’ll make you pay for your foolishness, do you see?”
Suddenly a cold fear gripped her. She could not believe her senses. She was terrified and bewildered. She stared at her father, believing him to be delirious, or mad, or drunk. What could she do?
“I tell you,” he said. “I’ll send for Whittle tomorrow if you don’t. You shall neither of you have anything of mine.”
Whittle was the solicitor. She understood her father well enough: he would send for his solicitor, and make a will leaving all his property to Hadrian: neither she nor Emmie should have anything. It was too much. She rose and went out of the room, up to her own room, where she locked herself in.
She did not come out for some hours. At last, late at night, she confided in Emmie.
“The sliving demon, he wants the money,” said Emmie. “My father’s out of his mind.”
The thought that Hadrian merely wanted the money was another blow to Matilda. She did not love the impossible youth—but she had not yet learned to think of him as a thing of evil. He now became hideous to her mind.
Emmie had a little scene with her father next day.