Three days later, Mordaunt, who inquired at the office every morning whether Mr. Planter's family was expected, learned that the best suite of rooms was retained for that gentleman, who was expected to arrive from San Francisco the same afternoon. His watchful aunt detected the change in his glad face when he sat down to breakfast, and she guessed the cause.
They arrived, happily without followers, though Clare took pains to let it be known that "some of her friends" were coming to Monterey for the night on Sunday. She met the Englishman's fresh demonstration of delight at having her here to himself once more, as she always met such calls, with every outward token of pleasure and response. Did he delude himself?—or was there even a touch of something more, something which had not been there in her manner to him hitherto? Be that as it may, she had no idea of not letting him know how much his conduct at San Francisco had displeased her. They were alone in the garden, the first morning after their arrival, when she said,
"You were awfully cross and disagreeable at San Francisco, Sir Mordaunt. I am glad to see you are ever so much nicer here."
"Well, there was good reason for my being cross there."
"Because of my friends? No; you were not at all nice to them. That was the trouble."
"Not nice? I like that! Come, come, the worm will turn at last. I don't want to say anything disagreeable about your friends. But be honest, confess that they insinuated every sort of villainy about me behind my back, though they were so sugary to my face. You know as well as I do that one of them wrote those anonymous letters."
"I know nothing of the kind."
"Then I do. The expressions in one of the letters I received are identically the same that—well, I won't say who used to my sister when speaking of you and your father. Of course, I didn't care a brass farthing."
"No one does in San Francisco. People get them all the time, and no one pays any heed to them. That was no excuse for your treating my friends de-haut-en-bas, as you did. It was very rude of you—very rude to me. And then, that last night when I begged you—I actually begged you—to come to us, and you refused! After all your protestations. I never heard of such a thing!"
"I protest nothing more than I feel; indeed, much less. It is because I do feel that I can't stand that lot of cads, what my aunt calls 'braying' round you. If you prefer them—well, then you'd better say so, and I'll retire. I hope I have the pluck to take my defeat like a man."