"Then be pleased to trim your speech to my brother officers," said I, still hotly vexed by her silly behaviour. "We went to Johnstown to take your husband because we believe he has communicated with Canada. And it was proper of us to do so.
"We came here to detain you until some decent arrangement can be made whereby you shall have every conceivable comfort and every reasonable liberty, save only to do us a harm by communicating with your friends who are our enemies.
"Therefore, it would be wise for you to treat us politely and not rail at us like a spoiled child. Our duty here is not of our own choosing, nor is it to our taste. No man desires to play jailer to any woman. But for the present it must be so. Therefore, as I say, it might prove more agreeable for all if you and Claudia observe toward us the ordinary decencies of polite usage!"
There was a silence. Lady Johnson's back remained turned toward me; she was weeping.
Claudia took her hand and turned and looked at me with all the lively mischief, all the adorable impudence I knew so well:
"La, Mr. Drogue," says she mockingly, "some gentlemen are born so and others are made when made officers in armies. And captivity is irksome. So, if your friends desire to pay their respects to us poor captives, I for one shall not be too greatly displeased——"
"Claudia!" cried Lady Johnson, "do you desire a dish of tea with tinkers and tin-peddlars?"
"I hear you, Polly," said she, "but prefer to hear you further after breakfast—which, thank God! I can now smell a-cooking." And, to me: "Jack, will you breakfast with us——"
She stopped abruptly: the door of Sir William's gun room opened, and the Scottish girl, Penelope Grant, walked out.
"Lord!" said Claudia, looking at her in astonishment. "And who may you be, and how have you come here?"