“In time!” echoed Eveleen scornfully, but her husband interposed with crushing effect.
“That will do, my dear. The Resident will think you are an advocate of Women’s Rights, if you don’t take care. You will find it advisable to rest a little after all this excitement, and it would not be amiss to change your gown.”
When Richard spoke in that tone, he could have shifted an iceberg, so Eveleen was wont to complain, with some confusion of thought. On the present occasion, he certainly shifted her. She found herself sitting on the couch in her bedroom, all the fight gone out of her, while he stood before her, his face wearing what she called its hatefullest expression.
“Now look here, my dear,” he said coldly, “there has been enough of these heroics. Twice over you have badgered Bayard in a way that would have made any other man on earth jawab [dismiss] me on the spot, and it is not to happen again. Why he don’t forbid you to set foot outside the compound I don’t know.”
Defiance revived. “I do,” said Eveleen. “Because he knows ’twould be no good.”
“Believe me, you would not find it easy to pass the gates in the teeth of the guard.”
“As if I’d dream of trying it! I’d jump the wall, of course.”
He recognised the futility of argument. “At any rate, if he chooses to leave you full liberty, I am going to restrict it. You won’t be able to ride much longer in office hours, happily—the sun is getting too hot—but as long as you do, you will be good enough to avoid the villages. If you can’t ride past these people without interfering in their concerns, why—take another direction, if you please.”
“I don’t mind,” listlessly. “Sure it’s no pleasure to me to see such shocking things happening, and nobody with the heart to lift a finger to prevent them!”
“Do you mean to say that after what Bayard told you, you still expect——”