“My sister’s stable is not mine,” replied Hurstmanceaux quickly. “She runs her dark ’uns wholly on her own responsibility.”
“Of course, of course,” said Daddy. “But the young woman’s fit for any stables. How she came by it I don’t know, but she’s uncommonly well-bred.”
“She appears so,” said Ronald. “But she must dree her weird. She can no more escape the penalty of being her father’s daughter than a hangman’s daughter can escape hers.”
It was not a liberal sentiment, but it was one which seemed perfectly natural and just to the views which he took of life.
He was deeply angry with his sister and Mrs. Raby. It seemed to him a monstrously bare-faced piece of intrigue to have brought him and the Massarenes under the same roof. He did not think Katherine herself privy to it; there had been surprise and trouble as well as embarrassment in her eyes when he had been led up to her; but he was sure that her father had been in the plot.
He spoke in his usual tone; not loud, but not very low. He had his back turned to a grand piano of Erard’s which stood in a recess; but Daddy Gwyllian had his face turned to it, and he could see through his sleepy eyes that Katherine Massarene, who with some men around her was at that moment approaching the instrument, had, though at some distance, heard the last part of this speech regarding the hangman’s daughter. He was certain that she had done so by a flush which rose over her face and a momentary pause which she made. In another instant she had reached the Erard and seated herself by it. If she had felt any emotion it did not make her touch less clear, her memory less perfect, as she played through the grand passage of Beethoven’s Sonata in E flat.
Daddy did not hear the sonata; he was away in the land of dreams, comfortably hidden behind a huge African palm-tree, his placid round face looking as innocent as a babe’s in his slumber; even his curiosity could not keep him awake any longer.
Hurstmanceaux, who loved and understood good music, listened charmed despite himself; but when the last chords thrilled through the air he did not join the group which gathered round her, but walked away to another of the drawing-rooms.
From the distance he could see her as she sat at the pianoforte receiving the compliments of the men about her; but the expression of her countenance was proud, cold and bored. She had looked very different on the Woldshire high road and in the market-place of the little town.
He felt sorry for her; there was something in her bearing, in her manner, in her countenance, so far superior to her parentage and position. She looked like the last scion of some great unfortunate race rather than the heiress of new ill-gotten millions.