Ann avoided meeting his glance, but she felt it playing over her like lightning over a summer sky. It was as though he had flung down a challenge and dared her to pick it up. She temporised.
“Do I think—what? I’ve almost forgotten what we were talking about.”
“No, you haven’t,” he returned bluntly. “You’re merely evading the question—as every woman does when she’s afraid to answer.”
“I’m not afraid!” exclaimed Ann indignantly. “I certainly shouldn’t be afraid of you,” she added, emphasising the final pronoun pointedly.
“Shouldn’t you?” He looked down at her with an odd intentness. “Do you know, I think I should rather like to make you—afraid of me.”
In spite of herself Ann shrank a little inwardly. She was suddenly conscious of a sense of the man’s force, of the dogged tenacity of purpose of which he might be capable. He had not been dowered with that conquering nose and those dare-devil, reckless eyes for nothing! She could imagine him riding rough-shod over anything and any one in order to attain his ends.
She contrived a laugh.
“I hope you won’t attempt such a thing,” she said, endeavouring to speak lightly. “If you do, I shall appeal to Lady Susan for protection.”
“That wouldn’t help you any,” he assured her. “Aunt Susan would let you down quite shamelessly. She keeps a permanently soft spot in her heart for disreputable characters—like me.”
When they reached the house they discovered Lady Susan located in the easiest chair she could find, placidly smoking a cigarette, her gold-knobbed ebony stick—inseparable companion of her walks abroad—propped up beside her. From outside the front door could be heard sundry scratchings and appealing whines, punctuated by an occasional hopeful bark, which emanated from the bunch of dogs without whom she was rarely to be seen in Silverquay. They went by the generic name of the Tribes of Israel—a gentle reference to their tendency to multiply, and they ran the whole gamut of canine rank, varying in degree from a pedigree prize-winner to a mongrel Irish terrier which Lady Susan had picked up in a half-starved condition in a London side-street and had promptly adopted. The last-named was probably her favourite, since, as Forrester had remarked, she had a perennially soft spot in her heart for disreputable characters.