"Three to four. Take exercise," said Margaret in the tone of a child repeating a lesson.
"And this is the way in which you take it? By sitting and dreaming away your time in nonsense and folly and in making up silly, idle conversations with idiotic creatures of your own imagination. I gave even you, Margaret, credit for more sense. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
Now, if Margaret had murmured the meek affirmative reply that was obviously expected of her, the whole course of her life might have been different. Her grandfather would probably have delivered himself of a few more harsh strictures, and then Margaret would have been dismissed to the house, with orders to double her morrow's lessons.
But though she winced at the scorn with which he spoke to her, it did not cut so deep as the ridicule he poured on what he contemptuously termed the idiotic creatures of her own imagination, and oddly enough, though she would never have summoned up enough courage to justify her own actions to him, she could not remain silent when the intelligence of her shadowy friend was derided.
"No;" she said slowly, thoughtfully, and quite as much amazed at her own temerity as Mr. Anstruther was; "I don't think I am ashamed, grandfather. You see, I am very fond of Eleanor Humphreys. She has been a very great comfort to me."
Sheer amazement held Mr. Anstruther silent. He would probably have been less surprised if the kitchen cat had entered into conversation with him.
"When I am lonely she comes and talks to me. She is not always alone, like me, but is one of a large family of brothers and sisters. They have such good times together. They play tennis, and go to parties and dances, and sometimes I go with them; but when I cannot go Eleanor comes here afterwards and tells me all she has been doing, and then it is just as though I had been to the parties also."
But at that point Margaret pulled herself up in a sudden breathless manner. It was always like that she thought confusedly. Either she had not courage to open her lips to her grandfather, or else she was led into saying all manner of things which a moment's calm reflection would have told her must on no account pass her lips.
But at any rate, as she realised with a queer little thrill of excitement, she had not been disloyal enough to say that she was ashamed of her affection for Eleanor. And she had had to derive as much comfort from that thought as possible, for it required no great discernment to see that her grandfather was terribly angry with her. Yet, when he spoke, his voice was as cold and as even, his diction as precise, as usual.
"I wonder, Margaret," he said, "if you are mad, or merely pretending to be mad. In either case, I have listened to you long enough. Kindly go into the house, seat yourself at the piano, and practise scales for two hours. The sound at this hour of the day will not be a pleasing one; but hearing it I shall trust that the manual exercise is keeping your mind from dwelling further on this folly."