"Perhaps. But this is idle talk. I am not what you think me. When the time comes you will know--what I intend you to know. So sure am I that you will be my wife, that I am content to return to London this day and leave you with Captain Burton."
"The sooner you go the better pleased I shall be."
"Ach! What English hospitality! How charmingly said!"
Brenda turned on him with tears of rage in her eyes. "You force me to be rude," she said, almost breaking down in the face of this persistence. "I have never been spoken to as you speak to me. An English gentleman can take 'no' for an answer."
"But I love you too much to accept such an answer."
"If you loved me, you would not worry me so. Please go, Mr. van Zwieten. Oh! I wish my father were here to protect me!" cried poor Brenda, keeping back her tears with difficulty.
"Call him, Miss Scarse. He has not gone out to-day, has he?"
"He has gone to London."
Clever and self-possessed as Van Zwieten was, this intelligence disconcerted him. He started and frowned. "To London!" he repeated. "He was here a couple of hours ago."
Brenda handed him the note left by her father, and turned away. "You can see for yourself. I suppose you will go after luncheon."