“You have, Mr. Playford.” The cool incisiveness of her tone stung him.
“How?” he asked, with an ugly look of fight in his malicious eyes.
She was ready with her answer. “To begin with, in coming here at all; to a house, I mean, where you might know you would not be welcome.”
“Obviously,” he retorted with a smile, “as the bearer of unwelcome news.”
“Which, if true, would be no news.”
The hit was palpable, but he gave no sign that he felt it. “I came to warn you,” he said, still watching her darkly.
“It was very kind of you,” she returned, with a touch of contemptuous irony, “and quite unnecessary.”
Manifestly the time for fencing was past. Playford rose, ostensibly to put down his cup, but he remained standing over her. “Countess,” he began, in a tone that had a deeper vibration in it, “Alexia——”
She raised her head imperiously. “Mr. Playford, I have forbidden you to address me in that manner.”
“I know,” he assented. “And you have forbidden me your house.”