“Have you threatened me enough?” Julie was frantically angry now.
She was aghast at the purpose that gathered in his face as he replied: “I do not wish to threaten you, but I have not given up.”
He descended the staircase, leaving Julie with her breast heaving.
That wretched voyage! Had men gone mad in this queer land, that they would ask a girl to marry them on a day’s acquaintance, and to this staggering casualness add the brigand intention to seize her if she refused? According to this doggedly unpleasant young man, he had put a mortgage upon her that he meant at some time to exact. How many more people were to advance claims on her life?
To rid her mind of this uncomfortable visitor she turned, on going downstairs, in the direction of Miss Hope’s room. The cheerful light shed through the partly open door drew her forward. As she climbed the three steps that lifted the room from the ground, she caught a glimpse of Mr. Brentwood’s white starched back. She started to retreat, but the young man, turning quickly at the sound of her footsteps, caught sight of her.
“Why are you always out when I come to see you?” he reproached, smiling with his white teeth through his carefully brushed mustache. “I tried to call on you to-night.”
“I wasn’t out,” Julie moodily replied, remembering how much she had wished to be. “I was upstairs.”
Mr. Brentwood directed upon Miss Hope a peculiar look. “Come in!” he hospitably insisted. “I can still see you.”
Julie’s evil star beckoned her on. Miss Hope offered no remark as she took a chair. Mr. Brentwood, promptly facing around to Julie, proceeded to direct toward her the fullest extent of his charms, and succeeded for once in being truly entertaining. Julie, eager to forget her experience with Purcell, dropped gladly into a sprightly discourse, and both of them forgot utterly the rigid figure of the vestal virgin, which opposite them began to steam with wrath.
After they had laughed together for some time, Mr. Brentwood bade Julie a lingering good-night, calling back a careless adieu to the shape in the background.