And sure enough the colour on Evarne's cheeks had perceptibly deepened.
"Jist look if she ain't gorn as red as a radish," continued Mrs. Harbert. "And all along o' the idea of a weddin'!"
"It's not that," declared Evarne with energy; "it was your silly suggestion of getting married at once—without any delay—that vexed me. You oughtn't to say things of that sort. You're excited about this Scotch tour, you stupid old Philia. As if people ever rushed off and got married at twenty-four hours' notice! And for no better reason than that I run the risk of feeling lonely and unhappy in an empty house. Bless the darling, she shan't have any of the hardships of life—no, she shan't! You've got no right to mortify me so; it's horrid of you, I'm really vexed with you."
She moved away, and sat down with her back to Philia, tapping the floor angrily with the tip of her pretty pink shoe. The old woman shrugged her shoulders and appealed to Geoff in decidedly nettled tones.
"Mr. Danvers, sir, am I a fool or is she? One of us is, that's certain, and though I asks yer which it is, I knows without bein' told. Maybe I 'ave taken liberties. I was only jokin'. Still, it's unkind o' Evarne to talk to me like that, ain't it? I'd better make up me mind not to go away, and 'ave done with all talk. 'Lonely and un'appy!' Why, it might be the death of 'er—that's what it might be. Yes, my beauty, you've chucked yerself downstairs in a faint once in yer life. You'll be doin' it again."
Evarne glanced over her shoulder.
"Rubbish! I was ill then."
"So yer are now; what's the good o' denyin' it? You'll take a header over the banisters one fine evenin' and cut yer 'ead open on the floor, and it will bleed and bleed and bleed, and no one will know. You'll lie there all night, and in the mornin' you'll be dead—a corpse—d'you hear?—cold and stiff—and all the howlin' in the world won't make yer alive agin."
Evarne laughed at this lurid visionary tableau, and recovered her temper.
"Why, what a very vivid imagination——" she was commencing.