“If I’m unfit to speak to her, what are you, St. Quentin?” he snarled. “A cheat—a liar—a trickster—a——”
“How dare you!” Sydney cried, flinging herself on her knees beside her cousin’s couch as though to protect him. “Leave the room, please!”
“You wouldn’t cling about him if you knew what I know. What everybody else shall shortly know!” Sir Algernon said between his teeth. “He is——”
Sydney had left childhood behind her as she faced him with clear, scornful eyes that met his fearlessly.
“You need not trouble to say any more,” she said, “for I do not believe one word that you say against my Cousin St. Quentin!”
In the stillness that followed a footman knocked and came in with a something on a salver. “A telegram for Sir Algernon, my lord,” he said.
Sir Algernon tore it open and read it, changing colour as he did so, then crumpled it and tossed it into the very heart of the blazing fire. “I have to write an answer for the post,” he said. “Au revoir, Quin; we’ll finish our talk when reluctantly deprived of Miss Lisle’s society. Miss Lisle, if you still doubt what I said about St. Quentin, ask him what I meant. He knows.”
He went out hurriedly.