She broke into the group and called him aside, and, in a voice which was audible all over the room, protested strongly and energetically against his behavior.
“I should have thought,” she said, with a haughty movement of her handsome head, “that, if you had been undeterred by any other consideration, the knowledge that I, a friend of so many of your own friends, have been staying with the Van Santens, would have been enough to convince you that such a thing as you imagine could not occur here.”
But the young man, who had appeared so good-humored and so easy to manage on previous occasions, was now as firm and as stubborn as he had before been gentle.
“It is because you, a young lady of known position and a friend of so many others of position, have stayed with these people and made a friend of them, that I and my friends have taken them up,” he retorted shortly. “It makes them all the more dangerous that they’ve succeeded in hoodwinking a lady as clever as you are.”
The word caused a movement of astonishment at his tenacity, in the group of men who were within hearing.
“Really, Sir William, you talk as if you were in a den of thieves!” said Miss Davison haughtily.
“Really, Miss Davison, I am inclined to think that I am,” retorted the baronet, as he bowed and withdrew into the next room.
Rachel was left standing, pale, indignant, frightened, in the middle of the music-room. The other men who had heard something of this short passage of arms, came round her, apologizing for Sir William, expressing the opinion that he had had too much champagne, and that there was no other explanation of his conduct than that, or a sudden attack of insanity.
Miss Davison received these remarks graciously, again expressing her astonishment that Sir William could make himself so ridiculous.
Before she had finished speaking, the group was added to by two or three more persons, one of whom was Gerard Buckland. With him she presently walked away towards the conservatory, and when they were out of hearing of the rest, she said in a low voice—