Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/144

130 a manner seeming to convey that he meant many things.

"Understand then, please," said Lord Theign with every inch of his authority, "that they'll show it best by minding their own business while I very particularly mind mine."

"You simply do, in other words," Hugh explicitly concluded, "what happens to be convenient to you."

"In very distinct preference to what happens to be convenient to you! So that I need no longer detain you," Lord Theign added with the last dryness and as if to wind up their brief and thankless connection.

The young man took his dismissal, being able to do no less, while, unsatisfied and unhappy, he looked about mechanically for the cycling-cap he had laid down somewhere in the hall on his arrival. "I apologise, my lord, if I seem to you to have ill repaid your hospitality. But," he went on with his uncommended cheer, "my interest in your picture remains."

Lady Grace, who had stopped and strayed and stopped again as a mere watchful witness, drew nearer hereupon, breaking her silence for