Herbert whispered a few words quietly into her ear, and then left the room hurriedly with a stiff and formal bow to his brother Ronald. Lady Le Breton turned round to the culprit severely.
‘Disgraceful, Ronald!’ she cried in her sternest and most angry voice; ‘perfectly disgraceful! You aid and abet this wretched creature—whose object is only to extort money by false pretences out of your brother Herbert—you aid and abet her in her abominable stratagems, and you even venture to introduce her clandestinely into my own breakfast-room. I wonder you’re not ashamed of yourself. What on earth can you mean by such extraordinary, such unChristian conduct? Go to your own room this moment, sir, and ask this young woman to leave the house immediately.’
‘I shall go without being asked,’ Selah said, proudly, her big eyes flashing defiance haughtily into Lady Le Breton’s. ‘I don’t know who you all may be, or what this gentleman who brought me here may have to do with you: but if you are in any way connected with that wretch Herbert Le Breton, who called himself Herbert Walters for the sake of deceiving me, I don’t want to have anything further to say to any of the whole pack of you. Please stand out of my way,’ she went on to Ronald, ‘and I shall have done with you all together this very instant. I wish to God I had never seen a single one of you.’
‘No, no, not just yet, please,’ Ronald put in hastily. ‘You mustn’t go just yet, I implore you, I beg of you, till I have explained to my mother, before you, how this all happened; and then, when you go, I shall go with you. Though I have the misfortune to be the brother of the man who gave you a false name in order to deceive you, I trust you will still allow me to help you as far as I am able, and to take you to my German friends of whom I spoke to you.’
‘Ronald,’ Lady Le Breton cried, in her most commanding tone, ‘you must have taken leave of your senses. How dare you keep this person a moment longer in my house against my wish, when even she herself is anxious to quit it? Let her go at once, let her go at once, sir.’
‘No, mother,’ Ronald answered firmly. ‘We are commanded in the Word to obey our parents in all things, “in the Lord.” I think you’ve forgotten that proviso, mother, “in the Lord.” Now, mother, I will tell you all about it.’ And then, in a rapid sketch, Ronald, with his back planted solidly against the door, told his mother briefly all he knew about Selah Briggs, how he had found her, how he had brought her home not knowing who she was, and how she had recognised Herbert as her unfaithful lover. Lady Le Breton, when she saw that escape was practically impossible, flung herself back in an easy-chair, where she swayed herself backward and forward gently all the while, without once lifting her eyes towards Ronald, and sighed impatiently from time to time audibly, as if the story merely bored her. As for poor Selah, she stood upright in front of Ronald without a word, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and waiting eagerly for the story to be finished.
When Ronald had said his say, Lady Le Breton looked up at last and said simply, with a pretended yawn, ‘Now, Ronald, will you go to your own room?’
‘I will not,’ Ronald answered, in a soft whisper. ‘I will go with this lady to the rooms of which I have spoken to her.’
‘Then,’ Lady Le Breton said coldly, ‘you shall not return here. It seems I’m to lose all my children, one after another, by their extraordinary rebelliousness!’
‘By your own act—yes,’ Ronald answered, very calmly. ‘You forgot that last Thursday was my birthday, I daresay, mother; but I didn’t forget it; it was; and I came of age then. I’m my own master now. I’ve stopped here as long as I could, mother, because of the commandment: but I can’t stop here any longer. I shall go to Ernest’s for to-night as soon as I’ve got rooms for this lady.’