"What do you want?"
The tone of the inquiry was not encouraging, and Mrs. Clover delayed a moment before she spoke again.
"I want to speak to you, Polly," she said at length, with firmness. "You know what it's about. Let me come in, please."
"I've got nothing to say to you about anything," answered Polly, in a tone of unmistakable decision. "You're only wasting your time, and the sooner you go 'ome the better."
She spoke near to the door, and with her last word sharply turned the key. Only just in time, for Mrs. Clover was that moment trying the handle when she heard the excluding snap. Natural feeling so much prevailed with her that she gave the door a shake, whereat her niece laughed.
"You're a bad, wicked, deceitful girl!" exclaimed Mrs. Clover hotly. "I don't believe a word you said, not a word! You're going to the bad as fast as ever you can, and you know it, and you don't care, and I'm sure I don't care! Somebody ought to box your ears soundly, miss. I wouldn't have such a temper as yours not for untold money. And when you want a friend, and haven't a penny in the world, don't come to me, because I won't look at you, and won't own you. And remember that, miss!"
Again Polly laughed, this time in high notes of wrathful derision. Before the sound had died away Mrs. Clover was at the foot of the staircase, where Gammon and Mrs. Bubb awaited her.
"It's all a make-up," she declared vehemently. "I won't believe a word of it. She's made fools of us—the nasty, ill-natured thing!"
Trembling with excitement she was obliged to sit down in the parlour, whilst Mrs. Bubb hovered about her with indignant consolation. Gammon, silent as yet, stood looking on. As he watched Mrs. Clover's countenance his own underwent a change; there was a ruffling of the brows, a working of the lips, and in his good-humoured blue eyes a twinkling of half-amused, half-angry determination.
"Look here," he began, thrusting his hands into his side pockets. "You've come all this way, Mrs. Clover, to see Polly, and see her you shall."