“And you—after turning up this pretty little nose at all the gallant young Spanish dons and settlers about the Pampas—to come and strike your colours like this, Very! I say, are you so very fond of him?”
“I—I think so, papa; I can’t help it.”
“Humph! But he’s an Englishman born and bred, and you’re half a Spaniard, Very.”
“But you are an Englishman, papa.”
“I suppose so. But thirty years in South America seem to have altered me. Yah! hammer away. What a blackguardly trick of his father!”
“Don’t talk about it, papa. Mr Rolleston said Lord Pinemount was furious with his steward for not bidding higher and buying this estate.”
“More fool he! I’d have bid his head off. He’d never have got it.”
“And he was very angry, too, because you refused his offer afterwards to take it off your hands.”
“I don’t care for his anger. I came over to England to end my days in peace. I bought the Sandleighs, and I mean to keep it.”
“Papa!”