“That man is getting unbearable!” broke from Mabel. “I shall speak to him—No, I shan’t,” she added wearily; “it’s no good. He gets the better of me somehow or other. Can’t you put a little cold poison into his medicine, Georgie? Surely it’s a case in which the end would justify the means.”
She went indoors with rather a forced laugh, and Fitz, who had been looking out over the desert without appearing to notice what was being said, turned round suddenly to Georgia.
“Can you honestly expect me to stand all this much longer, Mrs North?”
“All what?” asked Georgia, in astonishment.
“The Commissioner’s intolerable assumption. Any one would think he was Miss North’s guardian, or her father, or even”—with a fierce laugh—“her husband. What right has he to take it upon himself to defend her?—as if she needed any defending against you! It’s nothing but his arrogant impudence.”
“But still”—Georgia spoke with some hesitation—“how does it affect you?”
“Oh, Mrs North, you needn’t pretend not to have noticed. You know as well as I do that the Commissioner and I are both—er—well, we are both awfully gone on Miss North, and he isn’t playing fair. You have seen it, haven’t you?”
“I have, indeed, but I hoped you hadn’t quite found out what your real feelings were.”
“Surely you must have thought me a hopeless idiot? I found out all about it the day she had that fall from her horse.”
“So long ago as that? Why, you had scarcely known her a fortnight!”