“Shall we let it pass at that, then?” he asked. “At that and nothing more?” If the Lady Barbara did not care to explain her joke, why should he force her?
“Ay, let us call it a jest,” she answered, “unless the point be driven in too far. A too pointed jest is sometimes a blunt weapon, my Lord Farquhart.”
Lord Farquhart heard the words that seemed so simple. He realized, also, that the tone was not so simple, but, as he told himself, the time would come soon enough when he would have to understand the Lady Barbara’s tones and manners. He would not begin until necessity compelled him. He had quite convinced himself that the story of the robbery, and the rings and rose in his coat, were naught save some silly joke of the unsophisticated schoolgirl he supposed his cousin to be. He moved restlessly in his chair. It was hard to find a simple subject to discuss with a simple country girl.
“You received the rings in safety?” he asked, merely to fill in the silence.
“Quite,” she answered, “quite in safety, my Lord Farquhart.” She was consuming herself with a rage that even she could not wholly understand. Her intended victim’s indifference angered her beyond endurance, and yet she dared not lose the hold she had not fully gained. A jest, indeed! He chose to call the whole thing a jest! A sorry jest he’d find it, then! And yet, surely, now was not the time for her to prove her power. Tapping her foot impatiently, she added in a thin, restrained voice: “Suppose we let the rings close the incident for the moment, my cousin!”
Again Lord Farquhart questioned the tone and manner, but he answered both with a shrug. The Lady Barbara was even more tiresome than he had feared. He would have to teach her that snapping eyes and quarrelsome speech were out of place in a mariage de convenance such as they were making. Doubtless he had failed to please her in some way. How he knew not. But how could he please a lady to whom he was quite indifferent, who was quite indifferent to him, and yet a lady to whom he was to be married in less than a fortnight, a whole day less than a fortnight. Lord Farquhart sighed far more deeply than was courteous to the lady.
“If I can do aught to please you, Barbara, during your stay——” he began, with perfunctory deference, but she interrupted him hotly.
“Barbara!” she had been fuming inwardly. And only the night before it had been “Babs” and “sweetheart” and “sweet cousin”! Her wrath rose quite beyond control and her voice broke forth impetuously.
“I beg of you not to give me your time before it is necessary, my Lord Farquhart. And—and I beg you will excuse me now. I go to-night to Mistress Barry’s ball, and I—I—would rest after last night’s fatigues.”
She flounced from the room without further leave-taking, and as she fled on to her own chamber her anger escaped its bounds.