But, “Curse me if you are!” Giles answered. Drink had made him the more dangerous of the two. He lurched forward as he spoke, and placed himself between the girls and the foot of the open staircase that led to the upper floor. “We’re one apiece for you and one over! And you’re going to stay, my girls, and amuse us!”
And he opened his arms, with a tipsy laugh.
If Henrietta had been slow to see the danger, she saw it now. And the shock was the greater. The men’s flushed faces and vinous eyes, still more the dark face of the smiling gipsy who had raised the tempest for his own ends, filled her with fear. She clutched the child to her, but as much by instinct as from calculation; and she cast a desperate look round her—only to see that retreat was cut off. The girls were hemmed in on the hearth between the fire and the long table, and it was hard to say which of the men she most dreaded. She had gone through much already and she cowered, white to the lips, behind her companion, who, for her part, looked greater confidence than she felt. But whatever Bess’s fears, she rallied bravely to the occasion, being no stranger to such scenes.
“Well,” she said, temporising, “we’ll sit down a bit if you’ll mind your manners. But we’ll sit here, my lads, and together.”
“No, one apiece,” Giles hiccoughed, before she had finished speaking. “One apiece! You come and sit by me—’twon’t be the first time, my beauty! And—and t’other one by him!”
Bess stamped her foot in a rage.
“No!” she cried, “I will not! You’ll just stay on your own side! And we on ours!”
“You’ll just do as I say!” the man answered, with tipsy obstinacy. “You’ll just do—as I say!”
And he lurched forward, thinking to take her by surprise and seize her.
Henrietta screamed, and recoiled to the farthest corner of the chimney nook. Bess stood her ground, but with a dark face thrust her hand into her bosom—probably for a knife. She never drew it, however. Before Giles could touch her, or Lunt, who was coasting about the long table to come at Henrietta, had compassed half the distance—there was a knock at the door.