“Can’t help that. Business must be considered before pleasure, you know,” he added, drily.
Both were talking, as it were, to fill up the time until they were ready for attack and defence on the subject which was occupying the minds of both. Then, as Chris moved as if to go on her way upstairs, Mr. Bradfield came out of his study, and shut the door.
“I’ve bought a new picture,” said he, as he invited her by gesture to accompany him to the dining-room, “by one of these French fellows. Very high art; gives one the creeps.”
Before they stood in front of the picture, which was one of those heart-breaking war-pictures, tired soldiers trudging along under grey, wet skies, which form part of the legacy of the Franco-Prussian war, each knew that the tussle was coming.
“You take an encounter with a madman very philosophically, Miss Christina,” said he.
“Not more philosophically than you did, Mr. Bradfield, when you looked into the barn, and left me there with him!” cried she.
He was rather disconcerted by this retort.
“Oh—er—well,” he began, “you see, I could not quite make out, from where I was, who was with him, and——”
“And you knew, of course, what I did not, that he would not do me any harm.”