"I know that," said Piers. He spoke deliberately, as one choosing his words. His face was stern. "I don't want to know the joke if it's private. But I should like to know how long you want to be away."
"How long? How the devil can I tell?" growled Sir Beverley. "Till I've had enough of it, I suppose."
"Does it depend on that only?" said Piers.
Sir Beverley pushed back his chair with fierce impatience. "Oh, leave me alone, boy, do! I'll let you know when it's time to come home again."
Piers came towards him. He halted with the light from the lamp full on his resolute face. "If you are going to wait on Tudor's convenience," he said, "you'll wait—longer than I shall."
"What the devil do you mean?" thundered Sir Beverley.
But again Piers turned aside from open conflict. He put a quiet hand through his grandfather's arm.
"Come along, sir! We'll smoke in the hall," he said. "I think you understand me. If you don't—" he paused and smiled his sudden, winning smile into the old man's wrathful eyes—"I'll explain more fully when the time comes."
"Confound you, Piers!" was Sir Beverley's only answer.
Yet he left the room with the boy's arm linked in his. And the woman's face on the wall smiled behind them—the smile of a witch, mysterious, derisive, aloof, yet touched with that same magic with which Piers had learned even in his infancy to charm away the evil spirit that lurked in his grandfather's soul.