"It is not necessary. I know very well where you have been."
"I have been home—at Hall," said Anthony, going over to the table from the settle, where he felt himself uneasy with all eyes fixed on him. He pulled the gloves out of his belt and laid them before him, and drew them their full length on the table, then smoothed them with his finger. He wished he had not entered the inn; his face was clouded, and his muscles twitched, Crymes enjoying his evident annoyance. He sat on the further side of the table, with his mug of beer by him.
"I know very well where you have been," said he again, with his twinkling, malicious eyes fixed on Anthony. "So was I the day before yesterday; and also came off with a posie—but a better one than yours."
"It is a lie!" burst from the irritated young man, starting. "Urith never——" Then he checked himself, as Fox broke into ironical laughter at the success of his essay to extract from Anthony the secret of his bunch of marigolds. Anthony saw that he had been trapped, and became more chafed and hot than before.
"Do you know what she meant by giving you those flowers?" asked Crymes, and paused with his eyes on the man he was baiting.
Anthony answered with a growl.
"You know what they are called by the people?" said Crymes. "Drunkards. And, when you were presented with that posie, it was as much as to say that none save one to whom such a term applied would have acted as you had done last night by your offence against a dead man's grave, and by adding insult to injury by your visiting the widow and child to-day."
The blood poured into Anthony's face and dazzled his eyes. A malevolent twitch of the muscles of the mouth showed how Fox enjoyed tormenting him.
"Go again a little later in the season, and Urith will find another, and even more appropriate, adornment for your hat—a coxcomb!"