At last Felicia paused. Her smiles died away. She looked at him wistfully.
"Mother's awfully sorry she—she offended you so. Won't you forgive her now—and poor Babbo—about the little statue?"
She hardly dared breathe the last words, as she timidly dropped her eyes.
There were tears in her voice, and yet she was not very far from hysterical laughter. The whole scene was so fantastic—ridiculous! The room with its lumber; its confusion of glittering things; this old man frowning at her—for no reason! For after all—what had she done? Even the contadini—they were rough often—they couldn't read or write—but they loved their grandchildren.
As he caught her reference to the bronze Hermes, Melrose's face changed.
He rose, stretching out a hand toward a bell on the table.
"You must go!" he said, sharply. "You ought never to have come. You'll get nothing by it. Tell your mother so. This is the second attack she has made on me—through her tools. If she attempts another, she may take the consequences!"
Felicia too stood up. A rush of anger and despair choked her.
"And you won't—you won't even say a kind word to me!" she said, panting.
"You won't kiss me?"
For answer, he seized her by the hands, and drew her toward the light. There, for a few intolerable seconds he looked closely, with a kind of savage curiosity, into her face, studying her features, her hair, her light form. Then pushing her from him, he opened that same drawer in the French cabinet that Undershaw had once seen him open, fumbled a little, and took out something that glittered.
"Take that. But if you come here again it will be the worse for you, and for your mother. When I say a thing I mean it. Now, go! Dixon shall take you to the train."