And Sir Giles knew it, knew himself to be worsted, and that in his wife's presence. He glanced at her through eyes narrowed to evil slits. Her very impassivity goaded him. It seemed in some fashion to express contempt. With violence he strode to the bell and pealed it vigorously.
On the instant Nap turned. "So long, Lady Carfax!"
She looked up at him. Her lips said nothing, but for that instant her eyes entreated, and his eyes made swift response.
He was smiling with baffling good humour as he turned round to Sir Giles.
"Good-bye, sir! Delighted to have met you. I'll give your message to my brother. It'll amuse him."
He departed without a backward glance as the servant opened the door, elaborately deaf to Sir Giles's half-strangled reply that he might go to the devil and take his brother with him.
He left dead silence in the room behind him, but the moment that the clang of the front door told of his final exit the storm burst.
Sir Giles, livid, stammering with rage, strode up and down and cursed the departed visitor in lurid language, cursed the errand that had brought him, and rated his wife for admitting him.
"I will not know these impertinent, opulent Americans!" was the burden of his maledictions. "As for that damned, insolent bounder, I will never have him in the house again. Understand that! I know him. I've heard Shirley talk of him. The man's a blackguard. And if I ever catch him alone in your company after this, I'll thrash him—do you hear?—I'll thrash him! So now you know what to expect!"
It was at this point that Anne rose, passed quietly, with the bearing of a queen, down the long room, and without a single word or glance went out and closed the door very softly behind her.