Chris sprang to her feet impetuously with blazing eyes. "And what if it does? You had no right to look over me. It was a hateful thing to do. What if it does come from Mrs. Pouncefort? Is it mine any the less for that?"
"Oh, don't get huffy!" remonstrated Noel. "Look at you! Anyone would think you had got the palsy. But you needn't pretend it's from Mrs. Pouncefort, because I know better."
"It—it is from Mrs. Pouncefort!" declared Chris.
"Which is a lie," rejoined Noel, with the utmost calmness. "I know you, my dear girl, I know you. You've told 'em before."
"Noel!" Aunt Philippa interposed her voice with extreme dignity. "You forget yourself. If you cannot speak with ordinary courtesy, be good enough to leave us."
Noel heeded the remonstrance no more than if it had been the buzzing of a fly. Chris's spark of temper had kindled his.
"Oh, you can swear it's the truth till all's blue," he declared, raising his voice recklessly. "But that doesn't make it so. In fact, it only makes the contrary all the more likely. Besides, you know you do lie, Chris, so you needn't deny it."
"Noel!"
It was not Aunt Philippa's voice this time, and it had in it so firm a note of authority that instinctively Noel turned.
Mordaunt, just returned from a ride, was standing in his shirt-sleeves at an open window above them. All the colour went out of Chris's face at sight of him, but he did not look at her.