Nor did he see her at breakfast—nor at dinner.
IV
A curious little heartache accompanied Colonel Musgrave on his way home that afternoon. He had not seen Patricia Stapylton for twenty-four hours, and he was just beginning to comprehend what life would be like without her. He did not find the prospect exhilarating.
Then, as he came up the orderly graveled walk, he heard, issuing from the little vine-covered summer-house, a loud voice. It was a man's voice, and its tones were angry.
"No! no!" the man was saying; "I'll agree to no such nonsense, I tell you! What do you think I am?"
"I think you are a jackass-fool," Miss Stapylton said, crisply, "and a fortune-hunter, and a sot, and a travesty, and a whole heap of other things I haven't, as yet had time to look up in the dictionary. And I think—I think you call yourself an English gentleman? Well, all I have to say is God pity England if her gentlemen are of your stamp! There isn't a costermonger in all Whitechapel who would dare talk to me as you've done! I would like to snatch you bald-headed, I would like to kill you—And do you think, now, if you were the very last man left in all the world that I would—No, don't you try to answer me, for I don't wish to hear a single word you have to say. Oh, oh! how dare you!"
"Well, I've had provocation enough," the man's voice retorted, sullenly. "Perhaps, I have cut up a bit rough, Patricia, but, then, you've been talkin' like a fool, you know. But what's the odds? Let's kiss and make up, old girl."
"Don't touch me!" she panted; "ah, don't you dare!"
"You little devil! you infernal little vixen? You'll jilt me, will you?"
"Let me go!" the girl cried, sharply. Rudolph Musgrave went into the summer-house.