Saltash turned to Maud. "I am sorry you have been caught in such bad company," he said. "Pray explain that I came uninvited! I shall be at Burchester for the present. When you come back, you and your husband must come and dine. Good-bye!"
With the unabashed smile still on his ugly face, he turned to go, moving with the easy arrogance of the ruling race, royally incapable of discomfiture.
Uncle Edward followed him to the door, and grimly watched his exit. Then still more grimly he came tramping back. "And now to pick a bone with you, my niece!" he said.
CHAPTER XV
THE DOWNWARD PATH
She stood erect, facing him. Her face was very pale, but her eyes were quite unflinching. There was about her a majesty of demeanour that might have deterred a less determined man than Uncle Edward. But he stood upon his own ground and grappled with the situation quite undismayed. He was moreover very angry.
"You young hussy!" he said, bringing out his words with immense emphasis. "How dare you have your lover here? Thought you were safe, eh? Thought I shouldn't know? Oh, you're like the rest of 'em, crafty as an eel. What's the meaning of it, eh? What have you got to say for yourself?"
She did not attempt to answer him. Where her mother would have been loud in self-justification, she uttered not a word. Only, after a moment or two, she turned slowly and sat down at the writing-table, leaning her chin on her hand as one spent. Even so, there was an aloofness in her attitude that conveyed to the wrathful old man beside her an unpleasant sense of being at a disadvantage.
He stood looking down at her, grievously resentful, striving to select a weapon sharp enough to pierce her calm.
"I thought you were to be trusted," he said. "Goodness knows why! You didn't seem to have any leaven of your mother about you. But I see now I was wrong. You are just your mother over again. But if you think you are going to pursue an intrigue with that aristocratic blackguard in my house, you're very much mistaken. No doubt I'm very old-fashioned and strait-laced. But there it is. I object. I object strongly. The man's a liar and a thief and a scoundrel. Don't you know it, eh? Haven't you found him out yet?"