“You will show him out directly,” said Mrs Brandon, who would not turn her face in his direction, but continued to address the man; “and give him fully to understand what will be his fate if he should have the insolence to call any more.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Edward, trying to keep back a grin.
“Bai Jove, she’s mad!” ejaculated Max.
“Now then, sir; this way, please,” said the hard-faced footman, whose countenance, if stony before, was now adamantine.
“Hyar, I say, you—Mrs Brandon!” ejaculated Max, “what does this mean?”
“Air you coming, sir, or airn’t you?” said the footman angrily. Then, opening the door to its widest extent, he placed a chair against it, and advanced so fiercely towards the unwelcome visitor, that, to give him his due, more from dread of a disarrangement of his attire than fear of the man, he retreated round the table, stumbling once over a chair as he did so, and then in his confusion halting in the doorway. The next moment he was hurried into the great hall, and backed out by Edward, who, enjoying his task, proved himself to be the most uncompromising of footmen, and slightly exceeded his duty by slamming the hall-door after his discomfited guest with all his might, just as his mistress crossed and entered the drawing-room, where, pale and excited, Ella sat awaiting her.
“There, my child, that’s over!” exclaimed Mrs Brandon; and then, in spite of Ella’s troubled face, she leaned back in her chair, and burst into an uncontrolled fit of laughter, till, seeing how disturbed her companion looked, she sat up once more.
“I meant to have been angry, and given him a tremendous snubbing,” she said; “but, as he says, ‘bai Jove!’ it was impossible. Of all the consummate puppies I ever beheld, I think he is the quintessence. And he is so dense too, he seems to have not the slightest idea when you are laughing at him. There, my dear Ella, never wear that troubled face about the donkey. He is not worthy of a moment’s thought; and besides, he will never show his face here again.”
“I cannot help feeling troubled about him,” said Ella slowly, and as if she were telling her thoughts. “I fear him; and, dear Mrs Brandon, you do not know his character. It seems to me that that artificial glaze covers much that is gross, and unprincipled, and relentless. It has been my misfortune to have attracted his notice, and I never think of him without a shiver of dread. He seems to have cast a shadow across my path; and a dread of coming evil in some way connected with him—a strange undefined sense of peril—haunts me again and again.”
“There, there; what nonsense!” laughed Mrs Brandon merrily. “We’ll watch over you like dragons, and no one shall molest you; or, if it should come to the worst, we will set one chivalrous knight against the other—in plain English, Mr Charles Vining shall trounce, or call out and shoot, or do something to Mr Maximilian, the scented. Bah! he is in my nostrils now! But who is to be the next? Really, I am hard set to keep my little acquisition. How many more visitors of the masculine gender will there be, Miss Bedford?”