"Oh, don't you mind if you haven't got it," he said, easily; "a glass of beer would do."
After a moment's hesitation Miss Ellen rang the bell, and ordered "a glass of ale," and then Miss Charlotte found her voice, and told their guest to go and chain up his dog in the stable.
"Oh, all right! I'll go and cheek the old Johnnie with the stiff collar," he said; and so sauntered out, leaving the ladies gazing helplessly each at the other.
All tea-time the visitor was considerably subdued, perhaps by the close proximity and severe expression of the sisterhood; but after tea Miss Charlotte told Elsa to put on her hat and take her brother round the garden. Once out of sight, Master Godfrey's tongue was loosed.
"Whew! What a set of old cats!" he cried. "Have you had to live with them all your life? I'm sure I'm sorry for you, poor beggar."
Elsa's smouldering resentment was very near ablaze.
"What's the matter with my aunts?" she asked, defiantly.
"What's the matter with your aunts? By Jove! that's good. What's the matter with you, that you can't see it? Such a set of old cautions!" he burst into loud laughter. "But you've lived with them till you're almost as bad! I never saw such a figure of fun! I say, what would you take to walk down Piccadilly in that get-up? I'm hanged if I'd walk with you, though?"
"How dare you?" Elsa's cheeks and eyes flamed, she shook with passion. "How dare you speak to me like that? I hate you," she cried, "you rude, detestable child. I wish I had never seen you! Why do you come here? And I—I—I—was looking forward so to having you—I was! I was! I wish you had never been born—there!"
"If she isn't snivelling, I declare! Just because I don't admire her bed-gown! Pretty little dear, then, didn't it like to be told that it was unbecomingly dressed? There, there, it should wear its things hind-part-before, if it liked, and carry a tallow candle on the tip of its nose, or any other little fancy it may have. As to asking me why I came here," he went on, with a sudden vicious change of tone, "I can tell you I only came because I was sent, and not because I wanted to. Uncle Fred and Aunt Ottilie are off to Homburg, and want to be rid of me, so they shipped me off here; and Uncle Fred told an awful whopper, for he said it was no end of a jolly place, and I could ride and drive. Ride what? A bantam cock? Drive what? A fantail pigeon, for that's all the live stock I can see on the estate, unless you count the barrel on four legs that brought us from the station, and which the old boy calls a horse; and now where's the tennis-ground?"