Alice most unwillingly set out to find her husband; he was in the yard composing himself with a cigar, and personally despatching the carriage. When he had heard what she had to say he burst forth: “Alice, I am astonished that you can ask such a thing. No, I certainly will not forgive them; and if you say another word on the subject, I warn you that I shall begin to swear. I feel literally boiling with rage. Nothing less than a swim in the river will cool me,” he observed, moving off. “Stay one instant,” she cried, running after him. “What _am_ I to say to them, then?” “Say? Oh say that I am in such a frightful rage you are afraid to go near me.” “But you are not quite so bad as all that, and I am not the least afraid of you,” she returned with a smile. “Are you not?” he said, taking his cheroot out of his mouth and looking hard at her. “Well, you may go back and tell them that I forgive them this time for your sake, since you say that nothing else will induce the old woman to quit the premises.” “You will not come back and say so yourself?” she asked insinuatingly. “Not for ten thousand pounds; my forgiveness is but hollow. I should like nothing better than to give that young booby a thrashing that would surprise him, and to duck his mother in the pond. Such are my savage instincts. That is what I would do if I were a North American Indian and you were my squaw,” he concluded with a grim smile. “Reginald, I think you have taken leave of your senses.” “I see one thing very plainly,” he continued, walking by her side to the edge of the lawn, “and that is, that I shall have to stay here much longer than I intended, to rehabilitate you in the good opinion of society. So be prepared to enact with me in public the part of a most united happy couple. Do you understand?” he said, throwing the end of his cigar among the laurel bushes and coming to a full stop. “I will accompany you everywhere, carry your fans, shawls, bouquets, and other loose paraphernalia, and you”--very bitterly--“must assume a certain amount of interest and gratitude in return for my devoted solicitude. It will only be for a short time, but I see that it is an imperative though disagreeable necessity.” So saying, he turned abruptly away down a side walk, leaving Alice with tears of mortification smarting in her eyes. CHAPTER X. GEOFFREY MANŒUVRES. An hour later Reginald made his appearance in the library, where he found all the party assembled except Alice. Seeing him look round the room, Helen volunteered to tell him that she had gone to see a sick girl. “What, at this time of night?” “She went nearly an hour ago. She insisted on going, as she had not been to see Lucy Summers for some days. Alice has been so good to her all the summer--she is dying of consumption, poor girl.”