In silence Guy contemplates the ruins, in silence Lilian watches him; no faintest trace of remorse shows itself in her angry fair little face. I think the keenest regret Guy knows at this moment is that she isn't a boy, for the simple reason that he would dearly like to box her ears. Being a woman, and an extremely lovely one, he is necessarily disarmed.
"So now!" says Miss Lilian, still defiant.
"I have a great mind," replies Guy, raising his eyes slowly to hers, "to desire you to pick up every one of those fragments."
This remark is unworthy of him, proving that in his madness there is not even method. His speech falls as a red spark into the hot fire of Miss Chesney's wrath.
"You desire!" she says, blazing instantly. "What is it you would say? 'Desire!' On the contrary, I desire you to pick them up, and I shall stay here to see my commands obeyed."
She has come a little closer to him, and is now standing opposite him with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. With one firm little finger she points to the débris. She looks such a fragile creature possessed with such an angry spirit that Chetwoode, in spite of himself acknowledging the comicality of the situation, cannot altogether conceal a smile.
"Pick them up," says Lilian imperatively, for the second time.
"What a little Fury you are!" says Guy; and then, with a faint shrug, he succumbs, and, stooping, does pick up the pieces of discord.
"I do it," he says, raising himself when his task is completed, and letting severity once more harden his features, "to prevent my mother's being grieved by such an exhibition of——"