Pluma tossed aside her book with a yawn.
“Of course I am glad to see you,” she replied, carelessly; “but you can not expect me to go into ecstasies over the event like a child in pinafores might. You ought to take it for granted that I’m glad you are beginning to see what utter folly it is to make such a recluse of yourself.”
He bit his lip in chagrin. As is usually the case with invalids, he was at times inclined to be decidedly irritable, as was the case just now.
“It is you who have driven me to seek the seclusion of my own apartments, to be out of sight and hearing of the household of simpering idiots you insist upon keeping about you,” he cried, angrily. “I came back to Whitestone Hall for peace and rest. Do I get it? No.”
“That is not my fault,” she answered, serenely. “You do not mingle with the guests. I had no idea they could annoy you.”
“Well, don’t you suppose I have eyes and ears, even if I do not mingle with the chattering magpies you fill the house up with? Why, I can never take a ramble in the grounds of an evening without stumbling upon a dozen or more pair of simpering lovers at every turn. I like darkness and quiet. Night after night I find the grounds strung up with these Chinese lanterns, and I can not even sleep in my bed for the eternal brass bands at night; and in the daytime not a moment’s quiet do I get for these infernal sonatas and screeching trills of the piano. I tell you plainly, I shall not stand this thing a day longer. I am master of Whitestone Hall yet, and while I live I shall have things my own way. After I die you can turn it into a pandemonium, for all I care.”
Pluma flashed her large dark eyes upon him surprisedly, beginning to lose her temper, spurred on by opposition.
“I am sure I do not mean to make a hermit of myself because you are too old to enjoy the brightness of youth,” she flashed out, defiantly; “and you ought not to expect it––it is mean and contemptible of you.”
“Pluma!” echoed Basil Hurlhurst, in astonishment, his noble face growing white and stern with suppressed excitement, “not another word.”
Pluma tossed her head contemptuously. When once her temper arose it was quite as impossible to check it as it was when she was a willful, revengeful, spoiled child.