“I don’t think you need be, Miss Torrance,” he said. “I am only sorry I could not come back for you; but unfortunately—circumstances—prevented me.”
“You have done enough,” said Hetty impulsively, apparently forgetting the presence of the rest. “It was splendid of you.”
Then the bushman looked up again with an almost silent chuckle. “I guess if it had been your plates he sat on, you wouldn’t be quite so sure of it—and the circumstance was me,” he said.
Hetty turned from the speaker, and glanced at the rest. Muller was standing near the door, with his spectacles down on his nose and mild inquiry in his pale blue eyes, and a big bronzed Dakota man beside him was grinning visibly. The fräulein was kneeling despairingly amidst her shattered china, while Flora Schuyler leaned against the table with her lips quivering and a most suspicious twinkle in her eyes.
“Flo,” said Hetty half-aloud. “How can you?”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Schuyler, with a little gasp. “Don’t look at me, Hetty. I really can’t help it.”
Hetty said no more, but she glanced at the red-cheeked fräulein, who was gazing at a broken piece of crockery with tearful eyes, and turned her head away. Clavering saw the effort it cost her to keep from laughing, and writhed.
“Well,” said the man who had come with Muller, pointing to the wreck, “what started you smashing up the house?”
“It’s quite simple,” said the bushman. “Mr. Clavering and I didn’t quite agree. He had a billet in his hand when he crept up behind me, and somehow we fell into the crockery. I didn’t mean to damage him, but he wanted to get away, you see.”
Hetty swung round towards Muller. “You haven’t dared to make Mr. Clavering a prisoner?”