Vivienne tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. Did he really think that she was a tell-tale?
“Ah yes,” she said nonchalantly; “I have told them that you detest me and allow me only bread and water, that I sleep in a garret, and your father and Mrs. Colonibel run away whenever they see me, small Judy being my only friend in the house.”
Mr. Armour smiled more broadly. How quick she was to follow his lead! “Does my father really avoid you?” he asked.
There was some complacency in his tone and Vivienne holding her head a trifle higher responded: “I make no complaint of members of your family to you or to any other person, Mr. Armour.”
He frowned irritably and with one of the peremptory hand gestures that Vivienne so much disliked he went on: “Why did not Macartney speak to me himself about this affair?”
“He will do so to-morrow. I wished to see you first.”
“Why?”
“Will you be kind enough to excuse me from telling you?”
“No,” said Mr. Armour unexpectedly; “I wish to know.”
Vivienne shook her head in an accession of girlish independence that was highly distasteful to him.