"I'll come another evening," said he. "I have an engagement, and I must go out to keep it."
A stony hardness settled on mademoiselle's face. "What engagement?" she imperatively demanded.
It might be thought that Herbert would have been justified in civilly declining to satisfy her curiosity. What was it to her? Apparently he thought otherwise. Possibly he was afraid of an outbreak.
"What engagement! Oh—I am going to play a pool at billiards with Lord Hawkesley. He is in Helstonleigh again."
"And that is what you go for, every evening—to play billiards with Lord Hawkesley?" she resumed, her eyes glistening ominously.
"Of course it is, mademoiselle. With Hawkesley or other fellows."
"A lie!" curtly responded mademoiselle.
"I say," cried Herbert, laughing good-humouredly: "do you call that orthodox language?"
"It nothing to you what I call it," she cried, clipping her words in her vehemence, as she would do when excited. "It not with Milord Hawkesley, not to billiards that you go! I know it is not."
"Then I tell you that I often play billiards," cried Herbert. "On my honour I do."