Harkness's temper, so seldom at his command when he needed it, now happily flamed up.
"Are you trying to insult me, Mr. Crispin?" he asked. "It looks mighty like it. Let me tell you once again, and really now for the last time, that I am an American travelling for pleasure in Cornwall, that I had never heard of your father before this evening, that he spoke to me first and asked me to dine with him, and that he invited me here. I am not in the habit of spying on anybody. I would be greatly obliged if you would allow me to look for my match-box and depart. I am not likely to disturb you again."
But this show of force did not disturb young Crispin in the least. He stood there as though he were a wax model for evening clothes in a tailor's window, his black hair had just that wig-like sleekness, his face that waxen pallor, his body that wooden patience.
"My father is everything to me," he said simply. "If my father died I should die too. Life would simply come to an end for me. I am of no importance to my father. He is frequently irritated by my stupidity. That is natural—but I am there to protect him, and protect him I will. We have been really driven from place to place, Mr. Harkness, during the last year by the ridiculous ignorant superstitions of local gossip. Great men always seem odd to their inferiors, and my father seems odd to a number of people, but I warn them all that any spying, asking of questions, and the like, is dangerous. We know how to protect ourselves."
His eyes suddenly fell on the fragments of the "Orvieto." He bent down and picked some of them up. A look of true human anxiety and distress crept into his queer fish-like eyes that gave him a new air and colour.
"Oh dear! oh dear!" he said. "Did he do this while you were with him?"
"Yes," said Harkness, "he did."
"Ah! it was one of his favourites. He must have been in great distress. This only confirms what I said to you just now about disturbing him. I beg you to go—now, at once, immediately—and never, never return. It is so bad for my father to be disturbed. He has so excitable a temperament. Please, please leave at once——"
"But my match-box," said Harkness.
"Give me your London address. I promise you that it shall be forwarded to you." He held the candle high and swept the room with it, the sudden shadows playing on the walls, like a troop of dancing scarecrows. "You don't see it anywhere?"