"There you are mistaken, sir," was the spirited retort. "Faxon is no fortune-hunter—I'd take my oath that he would never stoop to win any one from a mercenary motive. The fact is that he and Miss Heatherford met and became acknowledged lovers while the girl was working for her living, and, notwithstanding he has no fortune or social position except what he has won for himself, she is prouder of him than she would be of a crown prince."
The squire could bear no more of that kind of talk in his present frame of mind, and, excusing himself to his communicative companion, he left him and made his way toward the hall, with the intention of slipping out unobserved and returning to his boarding-place. He was so absorbed in his disagreeable reflections that he paid no heed to any of the people about him, and had just reached the great archway leading out of the drawing-room when his way was suddenly blocked by some one who had paused before him and given vent to a startled exclamation.
Squire Talford lifted his head with a great, inward shock, and found a familiar form confronting him. The two men glared into each other's faces for a full minute without speaking, both looking like a couple of specters. Then the stranger gasped with colorless lips:
"You—here!"
"Looks like it," laconically returned the squire, who instantly began to recover himself, while his eyes glittered like points of polished steel. "Perhaps you'll be wanting to buy another ticket for New York, now that you know I'm around, eh?"
"No, I'll be —— if I will!" fiercely retorted the other, in a low, angry tone. Then he elbowed his way by his enemy, and disappeared among the crowd.
The squire chuckled viciously to himself, his irritation against Clifford forgotten for the moment in his new and rather startling encounter.
"Ha, ha! Bill. You're afraid of me, and you can't conceal the fact. And you have even more cause than you dream of," he muttered, a cruel smile wreathing his lips. "I wonder what you are doing here in Washington—I'll bet you're trying to lobby some devilish scheme or other, for your own private interests. But I think there'll be a day of reckoning between you and me before you're much older."
A little later Mollie and Gertrude Athol slipped away from the company and went for a stroll through the fine conservatory that led from the south side of the house. They wandered about, chatting socially, for a time, until Gertrude, chancing to glance up, saw her father standing in the doorway beckoning to her.
"Papa wants me," she said. "I expect he wishes to introduce me to some friends of whom he told me to-day. I am sorry to leave you, Miss Heatherford, but you will come to see me soon, will you not? and then we will plan to meet often. Good night, if I should not see you again."