‘I know I do,’ assented Maud. ‘I can’t manage as you do; I wish I could. She would give anything to be able to put you into a rage as she puts me; but she never can.’
Tor smiled calmly.
‘Just so; and I have no intention of affording her that gratification.’
‘It must be nice to be a man—a man like you, I mean,’ said Maud, regarding him with a loving admiration distinctly flattering to its object. Then, after a pause, she added, ‘I wonder what Aunt Celia really came for.’
‘You think she had some ulterior motive?’
‘I don’t need to think—I know she had,’ cried Maud. ‘I saw it by the look in her eye—just like a snake. I haven’t lived eighteen years in Thornton House for nothing, Phil.’
‘Phil’ rode on in silence, wondering if there could be any truth in Maud’s surmise; for he was convinced that Mrs. Belassis was his enemy, and a more dangerous one than her husband.
Pondering, however, did not bring him any nearer the truth; so he gave up puzzling his head about the matter, and determined to take this opportunity to speak to Maud about Lewis Belassis.
‘Maud,’ he began, ‘when is your birthday?’
‘Three weeks next Wednesday,’ answered the girl promptly.