"I am an enemy only should you determine to make me one; and this I trust you will not." He still smiled pleasantly, as though bent upon accomplishing whatever object he had in view.
"The color o' the coat you wear has determined that matter already," was Joseph Devereux's grim answer.
But the young man was proof against even this pointed rebuff, for he laughed, and said with reckless gayety, "Think you not, sir, 't is a bit unjust to refuse good fellowship to a man because of the color of his garb?"
"A truce to this nonsense, young sir!" exclaimed the old man, his impatience rapidly changing to anger. "Since you are about my premises in the manner you are, 't is certain you can in no wise be ignorant o' reasons existing which make it needless for me to say that I desire naught to do with you, nor your fellows."
The officer bowed, and with a slight shrug of his broad shoulders, resumed his hat.
"So be it, sir," he said, while the smile left his olive-hued face, "although I deeply regret your decision. But before I go, I must have speech with a young son of yours."
Dorothy moved still closer to her father, and turned a troubled look up into his face.
"My son, sir," he answered stiffly, "is not at home."
"No? Then pray tell me where I am like to find him."
"He has gone to the town on affairs of his own."