Fairholme shook his head. He was not lacking in pluck, and his artificial humor was only the veneer of an honest nature, but he surprised a look in Rosamund’s eyes that startled him. She was pale now, ashen pale. She uttered no word, but continued to glower at Evelyn with a suppressed malevolence that was more threatening than the mere rage of a detected trickster.
His lordship evidently thought it high time Baumgartner or his wife exercised their authority.
“Don’t you think this matter has gone quite far enough?” he asked, glancing from one to the other, and avoiding the eyes of either Evelyn or Mrs. Laing.
“Yes,” said Baumgartner, speaking with a pomposity that contrasted sharply with his prompt offer to supplant Fairholme as judge. “This absurd dispute about a purely private affair must end at once. I and my family are going to Europe by the next mail steamer——”
“Isadore!” gasped his wife.
“Father, you can’t mean it!” cried Beryl, who, at the lowest calculation, had made arrangements for a good three weeks’ further frivolity at Las Palmas.
“Unfortunately, I am quite in earnest.”
The financier looked it. Despite his magisterial air, his puffy face was drawn and haggard, and he had the aspect of a man who needed rest and sleep.
“You will accompany us, of course, Miss Dane,” he went on, speaking slowly, as though he were groping for the best way out of a difficulty. “Your quarrel with Mrs. Laing can be much more easily adjusted in England than here. I hope, therefore, we shall be spared further bickering during our brief stay in the Canaries.”
“But, father dear,” put in his daughter, “you said we were going home on the yacht, and calling at Gibraltar and Algiers.”