“No, it is not that,” she said. “No one could hit it off with Bruce Deville. I was fond of him once; but I am afraid that he is a very bad lot. I should advise you to give him as wide a berth as possible. Listen. Was that actually six o’clock? I must go this second. Come over and see me soon, won’t you, Miss Ffolliot, and bring your father? I will send a carriage for you any day you like. It is such an awful pull up to Naselton. Goodbye.”
She was gone with a good deal of silken rustle, and a faint emission of perfume from her trailing skirt. Notwithstanding his fatigue, my father accompanied her across the lawn, and handed her into her pony carriage. He remained several minutes talking to her earnestly after she had taken her seat and gathered up the reins, and it seemed to me that he had dropped his voice almost to a whisper. Although I was but a few paces off I could hear nothing of what they were saying. When at last the carriage drove off and he came back to me, he was thoughtful, and there was a dark shade upon his face. He sat quite still for several moments without speaking. Then he looked up at me abruptly.
“If Lady Naselton’s description of our neighbor is at all correct,” he remarked, “he must be a perfect ogre.”
I nodded.
“One would imagine so. He is her godson, but she can find nothing but evil to say of him.”
“Under which circumstances it would be as well for us—for you girls especially—to carefully avoid him,” my father continued, keeping his clear, grey eyes steadily fixed upon my face. “Don’t you agree with me?”
“Most decidedly I do,” I answered.
But, curiously enough, notwithstanding his evil reputation—perhaps because of it—I was already beginning to feel a certain amount of unaccountable interest in Mr. Bruce Deville.