“Yes,” murmured Chris, “and I am very sorry.”
“Not at all, not at all. You were quite right. I am a beast, and you—well, you know best whether the other title applies to you.”
“My daughter would be the last person to think so,” broke in Mrs. Abercarne, with just enough emphasis to show that it was to herself that he ought to be addressing his conversation; “she would no more think of calling herself a beauty, than she would of—of——”
“Calling me a beast?” added Mr. Bradfield, turning upon her so quickly that she drew her breath sharply, as if she had been frightened. “Well, and where would be the harm, when her mother set her the example? Oh, you can’t deny it. What was it I heard you say about me at the station? That I was more of a rustic than my own servants, and that my manners were—I forget what; but you remember, I daresay. Perhaps you will be kind enough to repeat your criticism now that we are both calm, and I will try and profit by it.”
It was Mrs. Abercarne’s turn to be out of countenance, and her daughter’s to glance at her in some amusement. For Chris saw by Mr. Bradfield’s manner that she and her mother would not have to suffer for their verbal indiscretions.
“You must have misunderstood what I said,” said Mrs. Abercarne, regaining her composure again very quickly, and speaking with a bland dignity which made contradiction almost an impossibility.
But Mr. Bradfield was a man used to performing impossibilities, and he laughed in her face.
“Not a bit of it,” said he shortly. “It was the truth of your observation that made it so striking. I am a rustic, and as bucolic-looking as my servants. There’s just the hope, of course, that the influence of your own grand manners may have a good effect upon mine.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Abercarne, with spirit, “I should have thought, sir, that if you believe us capable of so much rudeness you would scarcely wish us, or rather wish me,” she corrected, “to enter your—your—your service.”