"Now," said the girl, getting on her feet and looking very straight at her father; "now I am a woman, fighting for her happiness, and so will do my best to hold my own against your tyranny."
Hale did not like the word, and said so. "I am your father and no tyrant."
"You are both, and much more the latter than the former. I don't know how it is," said Lesbia, pondering, "but I have an idea that you are using me as a pawn in some game you are playing. Miss Ellis is in the game also, and so is Captain Sargent. What the game may be I don't know, and I decline to be pushed about a chess-board without knowing why I move."
"You shall do as you are told," said Hale, livid with secret rage, but not daring to show it openly, lest he should lose more of his already waning influence.
"I shall do as I think fit," retorted the girl, her spirit up in arms. "I don't care if you are fifty times my father, you shall not treat me in this way any longer. If I can clear George's character, I shall see him and marry him, and if you dare to bring in Mrs. Petty to spy on me, I shall appeal to my godfather."
"Your godfather. And who may he be?"
"You told me once and I have never forgotten. Lord Charvington is my----"
"I spoke at random," broke in Hale hastily. "He is not your godfather. He is nothing more than my cousin and my friend."
"And your benefactor," said Lesbia, unable to resist the shaft. "And being so, what will he say if he learns how unkindly you are behaving?"
"Lesbia, you are mad!"