As he spoke, he stepped before his companion, arresting her progress, and holding out his hand.
Driven thus to bay, the young girl once more turned and faced her pursuer with a look so firm and piercing, that he grew discomposed, and the words he uttered were unconnected and stammering.
“Sorry, you know, bai Jove! Mistook my meaning. Glad to see you again—am, bai Jove! Eh? What say?”
“I was not aware that Mr Maximilian Bray and the gentleman”—she laid a hardly perceptible emphasis on the word “gentleman”—“whom I encountered at that country station were the same. Allow me to remind you, sir, that you made a mistake then in addressing a stranger. You make another error in addressing me again; for bear in mind we are strangers yet. Excuse me for saying so, but I think it would be better to forget the past.”
“Ya-as, just so—bai Jove! yes. It was nothing, you know, only—”
Maximilian Bray stopped short, for the simple reason that he was alone; for, turning hastily, his companion had retraced her steps, leaving the exquisite son of the house—the pride of his mother, the confidant of his sister, and the pest of the servants—looking quite “like a fool, you know, bai Jove!”
They were his own words, though meant for no other ears but his own, being a little too truthful. Then he stood thinking and gnawing one nail for a few moments before continuing his way down to the dining-room.
“So we are to be as if we met for the first time, are we?” he muttered; and then his countenance lighted up into an inane smile as he thought to himself, “Well, I’ve got it over. And, after all, it’s something like being taken into her confidence, for haven’t we between us what looks uncommonly like a secret?”