‘On the spot. She denied nothing. Rather led the attack. One has but a poor vengeance with women, Crosby; but at all events she knows what I think of her. Of course there is an end to all pretence of friendship with her in the future, and I am glad of it.’
‘I hope you didn’t say too much,’ says Crosby, rather taken aback by the sullen rage on the other’s brow.
‘How could I do that? If it had been a man——’
‘She might well congratulate herself that she isn’t, if she could only see your eyes at this moment,’ says Crosby, laughing in spite of himself. ‘But she’ll make mischief out of this, Paul, I’m afraid.’ He is silent a moment, and then: ‘Your uncle is still bent, I suppose, on your marriage with her daughter?’
‘Yes, rather a bore,’ says Wyndham, frowning. ‘I don’t like to disappoint the old man.’
‘You mean?’
‘That I should not marry Josephine Prior if my accession to a throne depended upon it.’
‘So bad as that?’
‘Is what so bad as that?’—struck by a meaning in the other’s tone.
‘Why, your infatuation for your tenant.’