She glanced at Brendon, who stood by her side, tall and threatening. Her eyebrows were lifted in expostulation. A faint, delightfully humorous smile parted her lips.
“After all,” she said, “if this person will not be reasonable, I am afraid——”
It was enough. A hand of iron fell upon the scowling young man’s shoulder.
“Be so good as to stand away from that door at once, sir,” Brendon ordered.
Hill lost a little of his truculency. He knew very well that his muscles were flabby, and his nerve by no means what it should be. He was no match for Brendon. He yielded his place and struck instead with his tongue. He turned to Mrs. White.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, to seem the cause of any disturbance, but this,” he pointed to Anna, “is my wife.”
The sensation produced was gratifying enough. The man’s statement was explicit, and spoken with confidence. Every one looked at Anna. For a moment she too had started and faltered in her exit from the room. Her fingers clutched the side of the door as though to steady herself. She caught her breath, and her eyes were lit with a sudden terror. She recovered herself, however, with amazing facility. Scarcely any one noticed the full measure of her consternation. From the threshold she looked her accuser steadily and coldly in the face.
“What you have said is a ridiculous falsehood,” she declared scornfully. “I do not even know who you are.”
She swept out of the room. Hill would have followed her, but Mrs. White and Miss Ellicot laid each a hand upon his arm, one on either side. The echoes of his hard, unpleasant laugh reached Anna on her way upstairs.