“Oh, I’ll be calm. I despise him too much to be anything but calm,” returned Emily with an air of indolent scorn.
“Very well. Patrick, show Mr. Witherlee up here,” said Muriel.
Patrick bowed, and departed.
“Now for a scene!” cried the gleeful Wentworth. “His impudence won’t get him out of this scrape.”
“Take care, Richard,” remarked Harrington, “for in my opinion you’ll find it difficult to convict him of any misconduct.”
“We’ll see!” exclaimed Wentworth with a confident air.
Presently the door opened, and the good Fernando came in, bowing low with an almost cringe in his courtesy, and smiling with his usual constrained smile of elegance. He was very fashionably dressed, and looked, as he commonly did, handsome.
“Good morning,” he said with courteous empressement, as he came bowing forward. “All together, as usual.”
“Yes, all together,” said Harrington, good-naturedly, giving him his hand as he spoke, and taking no notice of the covert sneer which lurked rather in the tone of his last remark than in the words.