‘I will explain,’ he said, with the same cold glitter in his eyes, his lips drawn to the same thin line–a look she had never seen him wear before, and which sent her heart leaping to her throat.
‘For heaven’s sake, Jerome, do not look at me in that manner!’ she cried. ‘It is just–just as papa used to look when he thought some one wanted punishing.’
‘Do not interrupt with such vague, foolish nonsense,’ he replied impatiently. ‘I am going to write to Miss Ford to-night, to set her free from her engagement to me. And I–wish to be free from her. I am going to marry some one else.’
Avice had pushed back her chair, and sat looking wildly at him; her hands clenched tightly; her breath coming quickly, but unable to speak a word.
‘It is as well you should understand this,’ he said, again beginning to balance the paper-knife. ‘To-night you will want to rest, I suppose, but afterwards you will have to meet the lady I speak of; and it is to be hoped you will conduct yourself with more composure, more self-respect, in fact, than you display at present.’
Then Avice found words.
‘Do you imagine that I will be false just because it pleases you to be so!’ she exclaimed. ‘If you choose to behave like a coward and a liar–yes, a coward and a liar,’ she repeated, looking full into his eyes with an unblenching scorn that scorched him, ‘and that to the noblest woman that ever lived, I am neither a coward nor a liar. I will have nothing to do with this girl you are going to marry. You have brought me home, and you can make me miserable, I suppose. And you can make me see her, I dare say; but you can never make me like her, or behave as if I liked her, or as if I wished her to be my sister. And I never will. You may take my word for it. I stand by Sara Ford to the last, if I had to die for it.’
She spoke with vehement passion, and looked transformed. She spoke too like a woman, not like a child any more. And yet she was but a child, and a helpless one. He answered composedly:
‘It is as well that you have shown me by this specimen how you intend to behave. I will give you till to-morrow morning to reflect upon your position. Allow me to remind you that I never asked you to behave to Miss Bolton as if you liked her. It will be perfectly immaterial to her how you behave. But I want civility from you towards my future wife, or, if you choose to withhold it, I shall have to exert my authority as your guardian, and remove you–in other words, my dear little girl, I have no wish to make your life uncomfortable, but unless you can obey me without making scenes like this, I shall send you to school.’
Now ‘school’ had been the horror, and the bugbear, and the bête noire of Miss Wellfield’s life from her earliest childhood. She had often been threatened with it; and seldom had the threat failed to work its soothing spell. On hearing Jerome’s words now–on seeing the cool unrelenting expression in his eyes, and the slight sarcastic smile upon his lips, and recognising the absolute power he held over her destiny–how easily he could make her miserable, if not so easily happy; remembering that Sara was far away, and that under the circumstances she might never see that dear friend again; remembering that she had never seen this Miss Bolton, who might be quite ignorant of all that had happened–remembering, in short, her own helplessness and desolation, she burst into a passion of tears, of hopeless, agonised weeping, exclaiming now and then: