Volume Two—Chapter One.
An Officer and a Gentleman.
Claire shrank back for a moment, and her natural womanly timidity urged her to turn and hurry home by the way she had come.
But that would be showing Major Rockley that she was afraid of him, and this she wished to keep a secret in her own breast.
Bowing slightly, then, she declined the offer of his hand, stepped over the stile, and went on.
With anyone else Rockley would have felt bound to retire, but he only laughed. Claire was the daughter of the poor minister of fashion, who lived by the fees and offerings he received from new-comers; and he did not feel himself called upon to treat her as a lady.
“Why, my dear Miss Denville,” he said, laughing, “what have I done that you should try to cut me like this? I am ignorant. Come, shake hands.”
He held his out, as he walked by her side, and she turned upon him a look full of indignation.