“I haven’t said anything, have I?”
“Well, I suppose it means something when you decline to meet him as a friend.”
”‘The hand of Douglas is his own,’” quoted Jack. “I am very sorry, but I can’t do otherwise. And I must be off at once, if I am to catch the train.”
“You can have the carriage,” said Mr Thornton gruffly.
“No, thank you, the morning is so fine, I prefer to walk.”
“Stop a moment. Then you are not going out again to Rome?”
“Not unless I am obliged to do so. I shall spend Christmas with my father, and then come up for real hard work. Good-bye; good-bye, Aunt Harriet.”
“Hard work!” repeated Mr Thornton with scorn, as the door closed. And yet he was feeling a reluctant admiration for the straightforwardness with which the young fellow had behaved. If he had been left alone he would probably have relented, but his wife, with the best intentions in the world, immediately rubbed him up the wrong way.
“Of course you don’t mean it, Peter,” she said anxiously.
Perhaps nothing irritates a man so much as being told that he does not mean what he has just proclaimed with some emphasis as his intention. He faced round—