"'T is a man! a horrid, horrid man hiding there, waiting to cut all our throats in the dead of night as the Redemptioner did to the family at Martin-Brandon! Oh! Oh! Oh!" and Mrs. Lettice threw her apron over her head, and sank into the nearest chair. Patricia started up. Sir Charles, striding hastily towards the window, his hand upon his sword, was met by the emerging figure of Landless.
The two gazed at each other, Sir Charles' first haughty surprise fast deepening into passion as he remembered that the man before him had assisted at the scene of a while before, had witnessed his discomfiture, had seen him upon his knees, baffled, repulsed, even laughed at!
He was the first to speak. "Well, sirrah," he said between his teeth, "what have you to say for yourself?"
"That I ask your pardon," said Landless steadily. "I should have made known my presence in the room. But at first I thought you aware of it; and when I discovered that you were not, I ... it seemed best to remain silent. I was wrong. I should have made some sign even then. Again, I beg your pardon." He turned to Patricia, who stood, tall, straight, and coldly indignant, beside the chair from which she had risen. "Madam," he said in a voice that faltered, despite himself, "I crave your forgiveness."
She bit her coral under lip, and looked at him from under veiled eyelids. It was a cruel look, very expressive of scorn, abhorrence, and perhaps of fear.
"My father hath many unmannerly servants," she said coldly and clearly, "who often provoke me. But I pardon them because they know no better. It seems that like allowance cannot be made for you. However," she smiled icily, "I shall not complain of you to my father, which assurance will doubtless content you."
Landless turned from burning red to deadly white. His eyes, fixed upon the floor, caught the rich shimmer of her skirts as she moved towards the door; a moment and she was gone, leaving the two men facing each other.
Between them there existed a subtle but strong antagonism. Sir Charles Carew, courtier in a coarse and shameless court masquerading under a glittering show of outward graces, had taken lazy delight in heaping quiet insults upon the man who could not resent them. This amusement had beguiled the tedium of the Virginia voyage; and when chance threw them together upon a Virginia plantation, where life flowed on in one long, placid lack of variety, the sport became doubly prized. It had to be pursued at longer intervals, but pursued it was. Heretofore the amusement had been all upon one side; now, Sir Charles felt a chagrined suspicion that it was he who had afforded the entertainment. Simultaneously with arriving at this conclusion he arrived at a point where he was coldly furious.
Landless returned his look coolly and boldly. He considered that he had made quite sufficient apology for an offense which was largely involuntary, and he was in no mood for further abasement.
"You are an insolent rascal," said the baronet smoothly.