"No, you wouldn't; and I'm not going to, anyway. If they think they can scare me into running away they're mistaken. A handful of loafers!" The Beggar Man looked almost ugly in his obstinacy and contempt, and Digby shrugged his shoulders and turned towards the door.
"Well, you know your own business best, of course," he said. "But if I were you I'd cut the worry and start enjoying myself."
Forrester did not answer; there was a strange look in his eyes as he watched his friend leave the room.
He knew well enough what was going on beneath his very eyes. He had known before that afternoon when Peg tried to warn him, and he was amazed because he cared so little.
In a way, it was almost a relief to know that perhaps before long the strain of the past weeks would be lifted. Even the violence of a final snap would be preferable to the constant nerve racking uncertainty he had been suffering.
Disappointment and bitterness had set a wall about his heart, and he told himself as he looked after Digby's retreating figure that he did not care what happened.
Faith would go if she wanted to. Well, let her! He would not lift a finger to detain her.
He turned back to his papers, and Digby crossed the hall to the drawing-room where the two girls were sitting together in constrained silence.
Peg had been trying to read one of her favourite novelettes, a particularly exciting one of its kind, in which the hero had just been confronted at the altar steps with a previous wife. But she could not keep her thoughts on what she was reading. She was restless and unhappy. Her nerves seemed tightly strung, as if she were waiting for something unknown to happen.