‘No explanation is needed,—you know perfectly well what I mean.’
‘You credit me with miraculous acumen.’
‘Don’t juggle, Lessingham,—be frank!’
‘The frankness should not be all on one side.—There is that in your frankness, although you may be unconscious of it, which some men might not unreasonably resent.’
‘Do you resent it?’
‘That depends. If you are arrogating to yourself the right to place yourself between Miss Lindon and me, I do resent it, strongly.’
‘Answer my question!’
‘I answer no question which is addressed to me in such a tone.’
He was as calm as you please. I recognised that already I was in peril of losing my temper,—which was not at all what I desired. I eyed him intently, he returning me look for look. His countenance betrayed no sign of a guilty conscience; I had not seen him more completely at his ease. He smiled,—facially, and also, as it seemed to me, a little derisively. I am bound to admit that his bearing showed not the faintest shadow of resentment, and that in his eyes there was a gentleness, a softness, which I had not observed in them before,—I could almost have suspected him of being sympathetic.
‘In this matter, you must know, I stand in the place of Mr Lindon.’