“He is not at home.”
“Not at home!—I hear a great deal of noise. There must be a number of guests in the hall. Who is entertaining them, you or Judith!”
“That is no concern of yours, Mr. Menaida.”
“I do not believe that Captain Coppinger is not at home. I insist on seeing him.”
“Were you to see him—you would regret it afterwards. He is not a person to receive impertinences and pass them over. You have already behaved in a most indecent manner, in encouraging my niece to visit your house, and sit, and talk, and walk with, and call by his Christian name, that young fellow, your son.”
“Oliver!” Mr. Menaida was staggered. It had never occurred to his fuddled, yet simple mind, that the intimacy that had sprung up between the young people was capable of misinterpretation. The sense that he had laid himself open to this charge made him very angry, not with himself, but with Coppinger and with Miss Trevisa.
“I’ll tell you what,” said the old man, “if you will not let me in I suppose you will not object to my writing a line to Judith?”
“I have received orders to allow of no communication of any kind whatsoever between my niece and you or your house.”
“You have received orders—from Coppinger?” the old man flamed with anger. “Wait a bit! There is no command issued that you are not to take a message from me to your master?”
He put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a note-book, and tore out of it a page. Then, by the light from the hall window, he scribbled on it a few lines in pencil.