“Asked Charlotte!” said Francie, in a tone of equal surprise and horror. “What on earth made you do that?”
“Because I didn’t wish you should be left by yourself all that time.”
“I think you might have spoken to me first,” said Francie, with deepening resentment. “I’d twice sooner be left by myself than be bothered with that old cat.”
Lambert looked quickly at her. He had come back to the house with his nerves still strained from his fright about the open gate, and his temper shaken by his financial difficulties, and the unexpected discovery of Hawkins in the drawing-room with his wife had not been soothing.
“I don’t choose that you should be left by yourself,” he said, in the masterful voice that had always, since her childhood, roused Francie’s opposition. “You’re a deal too young to be left alone, and—” with a voluntary softening of his voice—“and a deal too pretty, confound you!” He cut viciously with his whip at a long-legged greyhound of a pig that was rooting by the side of the road.
“D’ye mean me or the pig?” said Francie, with a laugh that was still edged with defiance.
“I mean that I’m not going to have the whole country prating about you, and they would if I left you here by yourself.”
“Very well, then, if you make me have Charlotte to stay with me I’ll give tea-parties every day, and dinners and balls every night. I’ll make the country prate, I can tell you, and the money fly too!”
Her eyes were brighter than usual, and there was a fitfulness about her that stirred and jarred him, though he could hardly tell why.
“I think I’ll take you with me,” he said, with the impotent wrath of a lover who knows that the pain of farewell will be all on his side. “I won’t trust you out of my sight.”