Piers came out of a reverie and looked up with a faint rueful smile.
"Nothing, sir," he said.
"Nothing? What do you mean by that?" Sir Beverley's voice was sharp. "You go away like a raving lunatic, and stay away all night, and then come back with nothing to say. What have you been up to? Tell me that!"
Piers leaned slowly forward, took up the poker and gently pushed it into the fire. "She won't have me," he said, with his eyes upon the leaping flames.
"What?" exclaimed Sir Beverley. "You've been after that hussy again?"
Piers' brows drew together in a thick, ominous line; but he merely nodded and said, "Yes."
"The devil you have!" ejaculated Sir Beverley. "And she refused you?"
"She did." Again very softly Piers poked at the blazing logs, his eyes fixed and intent. "It served me right—in a way," he said, speaking meditatively, almost as if to himself. "I was a hound—to ask her. But—somehow—I was driven. However," he drove the poker in a little further, "it's all the same now as she's refused me. That's why," he turned his eyes suddenly upon Sir Beverley, "there's nothing to be said."
There was no defiance in his look, but it held something of a baffling quality. It was almost as if in some fashion he were conscious of relief.
Sir Beverley stared at him, angry and incredulous. "Refused you! What the devil for? Wanted my consent, I suppose? Thought I held the purse-strings, eh?"
"Oh no," said Piers, again faintly smiling, "she didn't care a damn about that. She knows I am not dependent upon you. But—she has no use for me, that's all."