"I wouldn't trust that girl!" Coryston went on, with vehemence. "She's got something cruel in her eyes."
"Cruel! Why, Lady Coryston's coming—"
"To trample on her? Of course. I know that. But any fool can see that the game will be Miss Glenwilliam's. She'll have my mother in a cleft stick. I'm not sure I oughtn't to be somewhere about. Well, well. I'll march. When shall we 'resume the conversation,' as you put it?"
He looked at her, smiling. Marion colored again, and her nervous movement upset the work-basket; balls of cotton and wool rolled upon the grass.
"Oh!" She bent to pick them up.
"Don't touch them!" cried Coryston. She obeyed instantly, while, on hands and knees, he gathered them up and placed them in her hand.
"Would you like to upset them again? Do, if you like. I'll pick them up." His eyes mocked her tenderly, and before she could reply he had seized her disengaged hand and kissed it. Then he stood up.
"Now I'm going. Good-by."
"How much mischief will you get into to-day?" she asked, in a rather stifled voice.
"It's Sunday—so there isn't so much chance as usual. First item." He checked them on his fingers. "Go to Redcross Farm, see Betts, and—if necessary—have a jolly row with Edward Newbury—or his papa. Second, Blow up Price—my domestic blacksmith—you know!—the socialist apostle I rescued from my mother's clutches and set up at Patchett, forge and all—blow him up sky-high, for evicting a widow woman in a cottage left him by his brother, with every circumstance of barbarity. There's a parable called, I believe, 'The Unjust Servant,' which I intend to rub into him. Item, No. 3, Pitch into the gentleman who turned out the man who voted for Arthur—the Radical miller—Martover gent—who's coming to see me at three this afternoon, to ask what the deuce I mean by spreading reports about him. Shall have a ripping time with him!"