’And though she found his usage rough,
     Yet in a man ‘twas well enough!’

he hummed, with his head on one side and an impudent leer.  ’We are interrupting the turtledoves, Mr. Thomasson, and had better be gone.’

‘Curse you!  Why did you ever come?’ my lord cried furiously.  ’But she won’t have me.  So there!  Now you know.’

Mr. Pomeroy struck an attitude of astonishment.

‘Won’t have you?’ he cried, ‘Oh, stap me! you are biting us.’

‘I’m not!  And you know it!’ the poor little blood answered, tears of vexation in his eyes.  ‘You know it, and you are roasting me!’

‘Know it?’ Mr. Pomeroy answered in tones of righteous indignation.  ’I know it?  So far from knowing it, my dear lord, I cannot believe it!  I understood that the lady had given you her word.’

‘So she did.’

’Then I cannot believe that a lady would anywhere, much less under my roof, take it back.  Madam, there must be some mistake here,’ Mr. Pomeroy continued warmly.  ’It is intolerable that a man of his lordship’s rank should be so treated.  I’m forsworn if he has not mistaken you.’

‘He does not mistake me now,’ she answered, trembling and blushing painfully.  ‘What error there was I have explained to him.’

‘But, damme—­’

‘Sir!’ she said with awakening spirit, her eyes sparkling.  ’What has happened is between his lordship and myself.  Interference on the part of any one else is an intrusion, and I shall treat it as such.  His lordship understood—­’

‘Curse me!  He does not look as if he understood,’ Mr. Pomeroy cried, allowing his native coarseness to peep through.  ’Sink me, ma’am, there is a limit to prudishness.  Fine words butter no parsnips.  You plighted your troth to my guest, and I’ll not see him thrown over i’ this fashion.  These airs and graces are out of place.  I suppose a man has some rights under his own roof, and when his guest is jilted before his eyes’—­here Mr. Pomeroy frowned like Jove—­’it is well you should know, ma’am, that a woman no more than a man can play fast and loose at pleasure.’

She looked at him with disdain.  ’Then the sooner I leave your roof the better, sir,’ she said.

‘Not so fast there, either,’ he answered with an unpleasant smile.  ’You came to it when you chose, and you will leave it when we choose; and that is flat, my girl.  This morning, when my lord did you the honour to ask you, you gave him your word.  Perhaps to-morrow morning you’ll be of the same mind again.  Any way, you will wait until to-morrow and see.’

‘I shall not wait on your pleasure,’ she cried, stung to rage.

’You will wait on it, ma’am!  Or ‘twill be the worse for you.’

Burning with indignation she turned to the other two, her breath coming quick.  But Mr. Thomasson gazed gloomily at the floor, and would not meet her eyes; and Lord Almeric, who had thrown himself into a chair, was glowering sulkily at his shoes.  ‘Do you mean,’ she cried, ’that you will dare to detain me, sir?’