“Yes, miss.” Mrs. Mellow shook her head. “I call it rare bad manners to ask a young lady to the house and then to leave her to entertain herself, as you may say. And I’ve told Master Tony so more than once.”
“You told him so? What did he say?”
“Why, miss, he looked at me in a funny sort of way, and he said: ‘Don’t you worry yourself, Mellow. Miss Ann will understand all about it one day—and before very long, too.’ I couldn’t think what he meant, miss. But I didn’t like the way he looked.”
Ann’s brows were knitted.
“How did he look?” she asked.
“Why, miss, sort of reckless. Like he did that time when we were down at Lorne last year and he and Sir Philip quarrelled something dreadful. He came down to me then, Master Tony did, in the housekeeper’s room, at Lorne, and he said: ‘Well, I’m off, Mellow, and whether you ever see me again or not depends on whether you can beat any sense into the head of that obstinate old man upstairs.’ He was mad with anger, was Master Tony, or of course he wouldn’t have spoken like that of his uncle. And I’m blest if he didn’t go out of the house the very next day! Sir Philip was in a rare taking, I remember.”
“He needn’t have been,” said Ann, smiling. “Tony only came to Oldstone Cottage and stayed with Robin and me.”
“So I heard, miss, afterwards. But, really, at the time I was frightened lest he should do himself a mischief—he looked so wild.”
Ann’s heart skipped a beat.
“Do himself a mischief?” she interposed quickly. “What do you mean? How could he?”