“Judith—is that her name?”
“Yes—Judith.”
“Judith!” he repeated, and thrust his stick along the floor, meditatively. “Judith!” Then, after a pause, with his eyes on the ground, “Why did not your aunt speak to me! Why does she not love you?—she does not, I know. Why did she not go to see you when your father was alive! Why did you not come to the Glaze?”
“My dear papa did not wish me to go to your house,” said Judith, answering one of his many questions, the last, and perhaps the easiest to reply to.
“Why not?” he glanced up at her, then down on the floor again.
“Papa was not very pleased with Aunt Dunes—it was no fault on either side, only a misunderstanding,” said Judith.
“Why did he not let you come to my house to salute your aunt?”
Judith hesitated. He again looked up at her searchingly.
“If you really must know the truth, Captain Coppinger, papa thought your house was hardly one to which to send two children—it was said to harbor such wild folk.”
“And he did not know how fiercely and successfully you could defend yourself against wild folk,” said Coppinger, with a harsh laugh. “It is we wild men that must fear you, for you dash us about and bruise and break us when displeased with our ways. We are not so bad at the Glaze as we are painted, not by a half—here is my hand on it.”