His tone was timid and imploring. He was frightened at his own temerity, and grew grey with terror as he spoke. She turned her head and transfixed him with the imperious challenge of her glance.
“What are you talking about, my good man?” she said in her clearest and unkindest tone. “It is not your house when I’m in it.”
“But I can’t allow play,” he murmured, with a gasp. “It’s against my principles.”
“Don’t talk rot, Billy!” she cried with impatience. “Who cares about your principles? Keep them for the hustings.”
Then she turned the ivory shoulder on him again, and, amidst the vociferous laughter of the circle of players, William Massarene, feeling that he had made a fool of himself, hastily and humbly retreated.
The merriment pealed in louder ecstasy up to the beautiful painted ceiling, as she cried after the retreating figure: “You go to bed, Billy—go to bed! Or we sha’n’t let you dine with us to-morrow night!”
“You’re rather rough on the poor beast, Lady Kenny,” said one of the players who was next her.
“Billy’s like a Cairo donkey—he must feel the goad and be gagged,” replied Mouse, sweeping her counters together with a rapacious grace like a hawk’s circling flight.
Then the little ball ran about in its momentous gyrations, and the counters changed hands, and the game went on all the giddier, all the merrier, because “Billy thought it improper.”
Katherine rose from her seat by the pianoforte and came to her father’s side. Indignation shone in her lustrous eyes, while a flash of pain, of shame, and of anger burned on her cheeks.