The implied taunt at her dead father incensed Freda as much as the accusations against Crispin.
“I suppose,” she said very quietly, “that my father liked scoundrels better than Christian people. I think I do too.”
The Vicar drew himself up.
In the midst of his anger at being thwarted, the girl’s answer rather tickled him.
“I shall come and have a talk to you, young woman,” he said more amiably, “when you’re in a better frame of mind. You’ve had everything against you, and I make allowance for it.”
Little Mrs. Staynes, who had listened to the latter part of this conversation in such horror that she had scarcely breath left to play her usual part of chorus, followed her husband out, pausing as she did so to say, in a warning voice:
“Oh, dear child, pray to be forgiven for your conduct to-day.”
Freda, who was distressed to the verge of tears by the whole interview, let them out by the big gate, and returned to the house. She was almost frightened to find Crispin in the dining-room, in roars of laughter.
“Well done, little one,” he said, as she came in. “That’s the way to serve the tract-mongers.”
But Freda was shocked.