Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/220

206 "Yes, we're fellow-critics, father"—she accepted this opening. "I perfectly adopt your term." But it took her a minute to go further. "I saw Mr. Crimble here half an hour ago."

"Saw him 'here'?" Lord Theign amazedly asked, "He comes to you here—and Amy Sandgate has been silent?"

"It wasn't her business to tell you—since, you see, she could leave it to me. And I quite expect," Lady Grace then produced, "that he'll come again."

It brought down with a bang all her father's authority. "Then I simply exact of you that you don't see him."

The pause of which she paid it the deference was charged like a brimming cup. "Is that what you really meant by your condition just now—that when I do see him I shall not speak to him?"

"What I 'really meant' is what I really mean—that you bow to the law I lay upon you and drop the man altogether."

"Have nothing to do with him at all?"

"Have nothing to do with him at all."

'In fact"—she took it in—"give him wholly up."

He had an impatient gesture. "You sound