But was she wrong? Was Richard annoyed at the vicar’s demeanour towards Eve, or was it her imagination?
The answer came directly, for Richard flung into the room, took up a sherry decanter, and filling a glass, tossed it off.
“Curse him! I won’t have him here,” he said aloud. “What does he mean by talking to me like that? by hanging after Eve? I won’t have it. You there, mother?”
“Yes, my son,” she replied, rising and looking him calmly in the face.
“Look here, mother, I won’t have that clerical cad here. What do you mean by asking him to dinner?”
“I asked him as a guest who has behaved very kindly to us, Richard. He is my guest. I asked him because I wished to have him; and you must recollect that he is a clergyman and a gentleman.”
“If he wasn’t a parson,” cried Richard, writhing beneath his mother’s clear cold glance, for it seemed to his guilty conscience that she could read in his face that he had broken his word about Daisy—“if he wasn’t a parson I’d break his neck.”
“Richard, I insist,” cried his mother, in a tone that he had not heard since he had grown to manhood, and which reminded him of the days when he was sternly forced to obey, “if you insult Mr Selwood, you insult your mother.”
“But the cad’s making play after Eve—he’s smiling and squeezing her hand, and the little jilt likes it.”
“No wonder,” said Mrs Glaire, calmly. “Women like attentions. You have neglected the poor girl disgracefully.”