Randolph smiled again; but his manner was certainly a little baffling.
“Come now, Randolph,” persisted Arthur, with boyish insistence, “you won’t hang back now that he is ready for the reconciliation. He is the injured party, is he not?”
There was rather a strange light in Randolph’s dark blue eyes. His manner was exceedingly quiet, yet he looked as if he could be a little dangerous.
“Possibly,” was the rather inconclusive answer.
“You know he has come to stay some little time in the neighbourhood, and he will often be here. It will be so awkward if you are at daggers drawn all the time.”
“My dear boy, you need not put yourself about. I will take care that there shall be no annoyance to anybody.”
“You will make friends, then?”
“I will meet Sir Conrad Fitzgerald, whenever he is your father’s guest, with the courtesy due from one man to another, when circumstances bring them together beneath the roof of the same hospitable host. But to take his hand in reconciliation or friendship is a thing that I cannot and will not do. Do you understand now?”
Arthur looked at him intently, as for once Monica was doing also.