“For my part,” Pen said, “I would not care a fig for such fripperies if I loved a man!”
“Oh, you are different!” said Piers. “You were always more like a boy than a girl. Just look at you now! Why are you masquerading as a boy? It seems to me most peculiar, and not quite the thing, you know.”
“There were circumstances which—which made it necessary,” said Pen rather stiffly. “I had to escape from my aunt’s house.”
“Well, I still don’t see why—”
“Because I was forced to climb out of a window!” snapped Pen. “Moreover, I could not travel all by myself as a female, could I?”
“No, I suppose you could not. Only you should not be travelling by yourself at all. What a madcap you are!” A thought occurred to him; he glanced down at Pen with a sudden frown. “But you were with Sir Richard Wyndham when I came in, and you seemed to be on mighty close terms with him, too! For heaven’s sake, Pen, what are you about? How do you come to be in his company?”
The interview with her old playmate seemed to be fraught not only with disappointment, but with unforeseen difficulties as well. Pen could not but realize that Mr Luttrell was not in sympathy with her. “Oh, that—that is too long a story to tell!” she replied evasively. “There were reasons why I wished to come home again, and—and Sir Richard would not permit me to go alone.”
“But, Pen!” He sounded horrified. “You are surely not travelling with him?”
His tone swept away adventure, and invested her exploit instead with the stigma of impropriety. She coloured hotly, and was searching her mind for an explanation that would satisfy Piers when the door opened, and Sir Richard came into the room.
One glance at Mr Luttrell’s rigidly disapproving countenance; one glimpse of Pen’s scarlet cheeks and over-bright eyes, were enough to give Sir Richard a very fair notion of what had been taking place in the parlour. He closed the door, saying in his pleasant drawl: “Ah, good-morning, Mr Luttrell! I trust the—er—surprising events of last night did not rob you of sleep?”