“Well?”
“I shall wait in the gallery; if you try any blackguardism, my buck, I’ll have our men up pretty briskly. I shall give them the tip to kick you out of the front door. See?”
Gabriel, white to the lips, bowed to her like an antique aristocrat and desired her to lead on.
“Even a lord’s daughter is not infallible,” he said.
“March,” was her retort.
“I wait for you.”
Man and wife were left alone together in the great salon of the castle, with its gilt panelling and many mirrors. Gabriel, standing by the door, saw Ophelia stretched at half length on a sofa by the open French window. She had a book in her hands, and a table beside her bearing flowers and a confectionery-box. Red cushions pillowed her opulent shoulders. She was dressed in black, with a red rose over her heart and a collar of Venetian lace about her throat.
She glanced up as the man entered, and closed the book in her lap with an affectation of languor. If the sister’s virago-like methods had kindled the man’s temper, Ophelia’s mood chilled him into a pillar of intellect. It was easily discernible that Ophelia had petrified her mind for the ordeal. There was to be no passionate rhetoric, no pleading, no elevation of sentimentalism. The man read her temper as he gazed at her brilliant eyes and firm white face.
“Well?” she said, with a certain flippant hauteur that was admirably assumed.
“I have ridden over to see you.”