“It seems to me,” he said, raising his voice a little, “that the excuse should be offered to me. I can only imagine you’re labouring under some delusion——”
“Ha!” said the old gentleman.
“Which I am quite willing to help to clear, so far as I am concerned. I haven’t the least idea what you mean by accusing me of sneaking round after your daughter. I have never set eyes on your daughter. I don’t know who she is or who you are. I came here off the high-road—perhaps I ought to say I’m motoring to London—because the roads are so slippery I couldn’t get on. Seeing your lights, I thought I could get some assistance here.”
“That’s why you went round to the back of the house, eh?”
“My dear sir,” said Masson impatiently, “are you aware that it’s a pitch-dark night, that the back and the front of your house are equally strange to me, that the mistake I made in going to the back instead of the front is the kind of mistake any stranger trying to get here would make?”
He spoke with a good deal of indignation, by no means soothed to hear Jenkins snigger: “He, he! that’s a good un. Et was all along of a mistake. He, he!” and the squire’s reply, snorted insultingly:
“Look here, my young man, I knew you were a rogue. I didn’t know you were a cur too. Likely story, ain’t it? Motoring, eh? Never seen my daughter. What? Never seen John Clifton o’ the King’s Arms neither, I dare say? Well, I have. John Clifton knows me, and he knows I’ve got him in my pocket. So when you went and ordered a horse and trap for ten o’clock to-night, mentioning—hang your impudence—that you might be wanting it for a young lady you were going to elope with, John Clifton, he came round to me. ‘He’ll be waiting about ten-thirty to-night, under missy’s window. That’s the arrangement, squire.’ John Clifton told me that. ‘Ten-thirty,’ said he, and, by gad, ten-thirty it is.”
“I’ve never heard of John Clifton in my life,” said Masson soothingly.
“Stick to your lie,” snorted the squire.
“Stick to your mulish idiocy,” returned Masson, equally enraged; “only, if you want to avoid making a drivelling fool of yourself, send for your daughter. I imagine she’ll be able to inform you that you’ve made a mistake, so far as I’m concerned.”