Part 6

"Imagine big, good-natured Roderick stirred sufficiently to lay hands on any one!" she laughed.

"But imagine him when stirred," he said.

"I hadn't thought of him in that way," she said, slowly--"Ough!" with a little shiver, "it must have been terrifying--what had Mattison done to him?"

"Nothing--Mattison is too much of a coward ever to do anything."

"What had he said, then?"

"Oh, some brutality about one of Colloden's friends, I think," Croyden evaded. "I didn't quite hear it--and we didn't discuss it afterward."

"I'm told he is a scurrilous little beast, with the men," she commented; "but, I must say, he is always polite to me, and reasonably charitable. Indeed, to-night is the only deliberately bad manners he has ever exhibited."

"He knows the men won't hurt him," said Croyden, "whereas the women, if he showed his ill nature to them, would promptly ostracize him. He is a canny bounder, all right." He made a gesture of repugnance. "We have had enough of Mattison--let us find something more interesting--yourself, for instance."

"Or yourself!" she smiled. "Or, better still, neither. Which reminds me--Miss Southard is coming to-morrow; you will be over, of course?"

"I'm going East to-morrow night," he said. "I'm sorry."

"But she is to stay two weeks--you will be back before she leaves, won't you?"

"I fear not--I may go on to London."

"Before you return here?"

"Yes--before I return here."

"Isn't this London idea rather sudden?" she asked.

"I've been anticipating it for some time," sending a cloud of cigarette smoke before his face. "But it grew imminent only to-day."

When the smoke faded, her eyes were looking questioningly into his. There was something in his words that did not ring quite true. It was too sudden to be genuine, too unexpected. It struck her as vague and insincere. Yet there was no occasion to mistrust--it was common enough for men to be called suddenly to England on business.----

"When do you expect to return?" she asked.

"I do not know," he said, reading something that was in her mind. "If I must go, the business which takes me will also fix my return."

A servant approached.

"What is it, Hudson?" she asked.

"The telephone, Miss Cavendish. Pride's Crossing wishes to talk with you."

Croyden arose--it was better to make the farewell brief--and accompanied her to the doorway.

"Good-bye," he said, simply.

"You must go?" she asked.

"Yes--there are some things that must be done to-night."

She gave him another look.

"Good-bye, then--and bon voyage," she said, extending her hand.