Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/75

 Why should he mind because he had heard a girl say that she was frightened and wanted to go home? And yet he did mind—minded terribly and with increasing violence from every moment that passed. The thought of that child without a friend and on the very edge of an experience that might indeed be fatal for her, the thought of it was more than he could endure.

He was clever at escaping things did they only give him a moment's pause, but in this case the longer he thought about it the harder it was to escape from. It was as though the girl had made her personal appeal to himself.

But what an old scamp her father must be, Harkness thought, to give her up like this to a man for whom she has no love, who doesn't love her. Why did she do it? And what kind of a man is the father-in-law of whom she is so afraid and who dominates his son so absolutely? In any case I must go down to dinner. I must just take what comes...

Yes, but his prudence whispered, don't meddle in this affair actively. It isn't the kind of thing in which you are likely to distinguish yourself.

"No, by Jove, it isn't."

"Well, then, be careful."

"I mean to be." Then suddenly the girl's voice came sharp and clear. "Damn it, I'll do anything