"This is my business address should you wish to communicate with me. And now I must take my leave." He picked up his hat and cane from the table.
Peg sprang up breathlessly and frightenedly. Now that Mr. Hawkes was going she felt deserted. He had at least been gentle and considerate to her. She tugged at his sleeve and looked straight up into his face with her big blue eyes wide open and pleaded:
"Plaze, sir, take me with ye and send me back to New York. I'd rather go home. Indade I would. I don't want to be a lady. I want me father. Plaze take me with you."
"Oh—come—come" Mr. Hawkes began.
"I want to go back to me father. Indade I do." Her eyes filled with tears. "He mightn't like me to stay here now that me uncle's dead."
"Why, it was your uncle's last wish that you should come here. Your father will be delighted at your good fortune." He gently pressed her back into the chair and smiled pleasantly and reassuringly down at her.
Just when he had negotiated everything most satisfactorily to have Peg endeavour to upset it all was most disturbing. He went on again: "Your aunt will do everything in her power to make you feel at home. Won't you, Mrs. Chichester?"
"Everything!" said Mrs. Chichester, as if she were walking over her own grave.
Peg looked at her aunt ruefully: her expression was most forbidding: at Ethel's expressive back; lastly at Alaric fitting a cigarette into a gold mounted holder. Her whole nature cried out against them. She made one last appeal to Mr. Hawkes:
"DO send me back to me father!"