“Yes.”
“An ugly child, that,” she said, “two great eyes sunk in fat cheeks.”
“Yes, you were not very handsome—”
She turned, and eyed him severely.
“Then,” he added, with deliberation and emphasis. At the same time he invaded the rocking-chair, where she had again seated herself. “Nina, you have come to stay?”
“No, indeed,” she said, giving him her hand in a tired fashion; “this is but a call. I wanted to put in the time this evening, and to tell you that I don’t wish to go back to the Forrests. They have disagreeable neighbours. You must either send me to a hotel or let me go to London.”
He smiled peculiarly and calmly, and took possession of both her hands with the emphatic words: “I want to hear from my wife what has happened to send her to me in such haste that she had not time to dress herself suitably for the street.”
“I got a most horrible fright,” she said, wriggling her head uneasily from his shoulder, where he was trying to persuade it to lie, and where she did not wish it to remain. “A madman came and told me he was my father.”
“A madman!” he repeated, in a puzzled, almost startled tone.
“Yes,” and she related the manner of her escape: “I got a cab on the Prince’s Road and it took me all the way to the landing-stage. Then I got a tender,—I couldn’t help spending so much money. I was so frightened and I wanted to get to you,” she said, winding up with a sob.