“At daybreak. You can pack your trunk before you sleep to-night, and the chaise will pick it up and you astride of it when we start.”
“Heavens, my dear madam! I heard nothing about my departure! Mr. Colman does not venture to say that ruin stares him in the face if I remain in Bath.”
“Nay, he does not go so far. ’Tis only I who claim you. I shall need your escort, Dick, and I shall make arrangements for your remaining in London—some simple arrangements, Dick.”
“The simpler they are the more difficult it is for me to accept them. I do not think it would be wise for me to be your escort to London and in London, enviable though the duty would be.”
She started into a sitting posture. She had been reclining on her tiny sofa.
“What is’t you mean, sir?” she cried. “Surely if I find no fault with the arrangement you need not do so. Scandal? Psha! My name has been associated with more than one scandal in my time, and yet I do not think that I am greatly the worse for it to-day.”
“No,” he said, “but you may be to-morrow. My dear sweet creature, I perceive at once how much depends on our discretion just now; and if I were, in the absence of my father in Dublin, to desert my sisters and the household, people would call me a wretch, and they would be right, too.”
“People would call you a wretch—a wretch and—a poltroon—a—a curmudgeon, and they would be right, too, were you to stay in Bath when I—I—ask your protection on my journey to London,” she cried.
He was silent. He did not even shake his head. He saw her diamonds flashing ominously. Theirs was a summer lightning, denoting a storm taking place out of sight—a storm that might rise over the horizon at any moment. He became conscious of a highly charged atmosphere. A flash or two came from her eyes.
“Why do you stand there dumb?” she said. “Do you not think me worthy of a word, Dick?”