“Is that so!” sarcastically. “Well, well! Did you intend to tell me when it was finished?”
“Of course.”
“Humph!... I wonder.”
Her eyes were beginning to flash. “You needn’t wonder,” she said. “I am not lying.”
If he had been more calm, more like his usual cautious and wily self, he would have comprehended that the glint in those eyes of hers was a danger signal which it might be best to heed. But he was angry and chagrined. Ever since Millard Clark had told him of the meetings in the Eldridge shanty he had been brooding over the disclosure. He was furious at her for keeping the secret from him and more furious at himself for being so easily hoodwinked. His serene self-confidence was decidedly shaken. Apparently this skittish colt was not so completely broken to harness as he had supposed. How many other secrets might she be hiding behind that innocent exterior? And the thought that a grandson of his arch enemy should have shared a secret with her was the crowning ignominy.
“It depends on what you call a lie, I should say,” he growled. “If slipping out of this house time after time and pretending to me that—”
“I didn’t pretend anything. If you had asked me I should have told you. I haven’t done anything that I am ashamed of. Not a single thing.”
“You haven’t! Well, then I’m ashamed for you. Sneaking down to that God-forsaken place a half dozen times a week and shutting yourself up with that—that cub isn’t—”
“Stop!” She sprang to her feet, her fists clinched and her cheeks ablaze. “You shan’t say such things to me!” she cried. “You haven’t any right to say them. I don’t care if you are—if you have done everything in the world for me. You needn’t do any more. I was—I was going to tell you all about it, every word, just as soon as your birthday came, and give you the picture. I— Oh, I thought you would like it! It was going to be a surprise and—and—”
“Here!” he broke in. “Hold on! What’s all this?”