‘What is it, Miss Wynter?’ she asked.
‘Only this, that I don’t know what Mr. Askam means by behaving as he is doing, and I am quite sure you do not; but one thing is certain,—that Mr. Roger Camm will be here directly, and I would advise you to moderate your transports, and behave a little more like a reasonable being before he comes.’
‘Roger Camm, indeed!’ exclaimed Ada, nettled. ‘He’s not my master yet, nor ever will be, Miss Wynter. He may come twenty times for aught I care.’
Never before had she addressed Magdalen in such a tone. It would appear that the latter was in earnest in her remonstrance, for she now appealed to Otho.
‘Listen to me, Otho. If you are conducting yourself in this way in order to vex me, you have quite succeeded. I’m ready to own it, and I will give you whatever explanation you like after this is over; but for heaven’s sake go back into the concert-room before Roger Camm comes. You have no right to behave as you are doing, and he will very speedily let you know that he thinks so.’
‘Right!’ exclaimed Otho, with a laugh. ‘I never ask about right. I do what I have a fancy for.’
‘Pray what harm can Roger say of me?’ said Ada pettishly.
‘I would rather ask, what good he can say of you, if you let him see you making yourself ridiculous in this fashion. In any case, you belong to him, and——’
‘Not yet!’ exclaimed both Otho and Ada in one voice. Magdalen looked at them both, and showed what was with her a rare sign, betokening strong emotion—a heightened colour in her cheeks.
‘Otho,’ she said, slowly and deliberately, and with a glitter in her eyes, ‘I believe you are a downright bad man; and, Ada, I am certain now that you are a complete fool. You are both doing what you will rue to the last day of your lives.’ Magdalen spoke with a suppressed passion, so unusual with her as to cause her physical pain in the effort to control it—passion which would have astounded Otho now, if he had not been too angrily determined to do his own way to heed her.