As she took a few quiet steps forward to meet him, their eyes rested on each other.After a night or two in town his were slightly bloodshot, and the light in them was not agreeable.
It was he who spoke first, and it is possible that he did not quite intend to use the expletive which broke from him.
But he was remembering things also.Here were eyes he, too, had seen before--twelve years ago in the face of an objectionable, long-legged child in New York.And his own hatred of them had been founded in his own opinion on the best of reasons.And here they gazed at him from the face of a young beauty--for a beauty she was.
"Damn it!" he exclaimed; "it is Betty."
"Yes," she answered, with a faint, but entirely courteous, smile."It is.I hope you are very well."She held out her hand."A delicious hand," was what he said to himself, as he took it.And what eyes for a girl to have in her head were those which looked out at him between shadows.Was there a hint of the devil in them? He thought so--he hoped so, since she had descended on the place in this way.But WHAT the devil was the meaning of her being on the spot at all? He was, however, far beyond the lack of astuteness which might have permitted him to express this last thought at this particular juncture.He was only betrayed into stupid mistakes, afterwards to be regretted, when rage caused him utterly to lose control of his wits.And, though he was startled and not exactly pleased, he was not in a rage now.The eyelashes and the figure gave an agreeable fillip to his humour.Howsoever she had come, she was worth looking at.
"How could one expect such a delightful thing as this?"he said, with a touch of ironic amiability."It is more than one deserves.""It is very polite of you to say that," answered Betty.
He was thinking rapidly as he stood and gazed at her.There were, in truth, many things to think of under circumstances so unexpected.
"May I ask you to excuse my staring at you?" he inquired with what Rosy had called his "awful, agreeable smile.""When I saw you last you were a fierce nine-year-old American child.I use the word `fierce' because--if you'll pardon my saying so--there was a certain ferocity about you.""I have learned at various educational institutions to conceal it," smiled Betty.
"May I ask when you arrived?"
"A short time after you went abroad."
"Rosalie did not inform me of your arrival.""She did not know your address.You had forgotten to leave it."He had made a mistake and realised it.But she presented to him no air of having observed his slip.He paused a few seconds, still regarding her and still thinking rapidly.He recalled the mended windows and roofs and palings in the village, the park gates and entrance.Who the devil had done all that?
How could a mere handsome girl be concerned in it? And yet--here she was.
"When I drove through the village," he said next, "I saw that some remarkable changes had taken place on my property.
I feel as if you can explain them to me.""I hope they are changes which meet with your approval.""Quite--quite," a little curtly."Though I confess they mystify me.Though I am the son-in-law of an American multimillionaire, I could not afford to make such repairs myself."A certain small spitefulness which was his most frequent undoing made it impossible for him to resist adding the innuendo in his last sentence.And again he saw it was a folly.The impersonal tone of her reply simply left him where he had placed himself.
"We were sorry not to be able to reach you.As it seemed well to begin the work at once, we consulted Messrs.Townlinson & Sheppard.""We?" he repeated."Am I to have the pleasure," with a slight wryness of the mouth, "of finding Mr.Vanderpoel also at Stornham?""No--not yet.As I was on the spot, I saw your solicitors and asked their advice and approval--for my father.If he had known how necessary the work was, it would have been done before, for Ughtred's sake."Her voice was that of a person who, in stating obvious facts, provides no approach to enlightening comment upon them.
And there was in her manner the merest gracious impersonality.
"Do I understand that Mr.Vanderpoel employed someone to visit the place and direct the work?""It was really not difficult to direct.It was merely a matter of engaging labour and competent foremen."An odd expression rose in his eyes.
"You suggest a novel idea, upon my word," he said."Is it possible--you see I know something of America--is it possible I must thank YOU for the working of this magic?""You need not thank me," she said, rather slowly, because it was necessary that she also should think of many things at once."I could not have helped doing it."She wished to make all clear to him before he met Rosy.
She knew it was not unnatural that the unexpectedness of his appearance might deprive Lady Anstruthers of presence of mind.Instinct told her that what was needed in intercourse with him was, above all things, presence of mind.
"I will tell you about it," she said."We will walk slowly up and down here, if you do not object."He did not object.He wanted to hear the story as he could not hear it from his nervous little fool of a wife, who would be frightened into forgetting things and their sequence.What he meant to discover was where he stood in the matter--where his father-in-law stood, and, rather specially, to have a chance to sum up the weaknesses and strengths of the new arrival.
That would be to his interest.In talking this thing over she would unconsciously reveal how much vanity or emotion or inexperience he might count upon as factors safe to use in one's dealings with her in the future.