"Why did you not stay?" he whispered, as they arrived at the gates. "Lucy, do you know that to part with you is to part with my life's sunshine?"
Mrs. Arkell was standing at the door as he turned, and beckoned to him from the distance.
"I wish to speak with you," she said, as he approached.
She led the way into the dining-room, and closed the door on them, as if for some formidable interview. Travice saw that she was in a scarcely irrepressible state of anger, and he perched himself on a vacant side-table—rather a favourite way of his. He began humming a tune; gaily, but not disrespectfully.
"What possesses you to behave in this absurd manner to Lucy Arkell?" she began, in passion.
"What have I done now?" asked Travice.
"You are continually, in some way or other, contriving to thrust that girl's company upon us! I will not permit it, Travice; I have borne with it too long. I——"
"Why, she is not here twice in a twelvemonth," interrupted Travice.
"Don't say absurd things. She is. And she is not fit society for your sisters."
"If they were only half as worthy of her society as she is superior to them, they would be very different girls from what they are," spoke Travice, with a touch of his father's old heat. "If there's one thing that Lucy is, pre-eminently, it's a gentlewoman. Her mother was one before her."