“She met some other friends,” Stephen answered. “She left me.”
Wilhelmina smiled. She had found out all that she wanted to know.
“Well,” she said, “I won’t inquire too closely into it this time, only I hope that nothing of the sort will occur again. You had better have lunch with Mrs. Brown in the housekeeper’s room, Letty, and I’ll send you over to St. Pancras for the four o’clock train. I’ll give you a letter to your mother this time, but mind, no more foolishness of this sort.”
The girl tried to stammer out her thanks, but she was almost incoherent. Wilhelmina dismissed her with a smile. Her manner was distinctly colder when she turned to Hurd.
“Mr. Hurd,” she said, “I hope you will understand me when I say that I do not care to have my agent, or any one connected with the estate, play the Don Juan amongst my tenants’ daughters.”
He flushed up to the eyes.
“It was idiotic of me,” he admitted frankly. “I simply meant to give the child a good time.”
“She is quite pretty in her way,” Wilhelmina said, “and her parents, I believe, are most respectable people. You were perhaps thinking of settling down?”
He looked at her in amazement.