'No. It's nothing. It's only a passing touch.' He tried to brace himself up: but though he tried hard he still seemed limp. 'If you will come to my room, Mrs.--what did you say your name was?' 'Merrett, sir.' 'If you will come into my room, Mrs. Merrett, I will speak to you there.' 'Douglas,' said the elder of the ladies, just as he had his hand upon the handle of the door, 'who is Mr. Montagu Babbacombe?' 'Babbacombe?' He tried to meet her eyes: but couldn't. 'Oh, he's a wretched mountebank.' It fired my blood to hear him speak of my James like that. 'Begging your pardon, sir, but he's nothing of the kind. And if that's the way you're going to speak of my husband I'd rather say what I have to say before the ladies.' 'I dare say you would; but you won't. You will come into my own room, Mrs. Merrett.' 'Excuse me, sir, but I will not. You can tell me just as well here as anywhere what it is you've done with my husband.' CHAPTER XIII WHO'S THAT CALLING? I do believe, if we'd been alone, he would have struck me. As it was, I'm sure he would have liked to. That I should dare to speak to him like that--him so big, and me so small, and him a great gentleman, and me just nothing and nobody--it did put his back up. He glared as if he would have liked to eat me. And yet, all the while, I knew that somewhere inside of him he was afraid of me. It mayn't sound sense, I own; but I know what I mean if I can't just say it. The elder lady came and put her hand upon his arm. 'Douglas, why do you look at her like that? She's only a child.' He spoke, as it might be, between his gritted teeth. 'Since Mrs. Merrett won't come to my room, I'm afraid I must ask you two to leave this; to enable me to speak a few plain truths to her in private.' 'She's only anxious for her husband. Why should you be angry with her on that account? She says that you first saw him on the day on which you first saw Twickenham.' He shot round at her with quite as savage a look as he had given me. 'Who told you that?' 'She was telling us just before you came.' 'It strikes me she's tarred with the same brush as her scoundrelly husband.' It did make me wild to hear him! It always does when people say things against James. And especially him! 'How dare you stand there and speak of him like that before my face--when, for all I know, his blood's upon your hands!' I didn't mean it; not at the time I didn't. I just said it because I was in a rage. But if I had meant it ever so much it couldn't have affected him more. He shrank back from me as if I were some dreadful thing; his jaw dropped open; he stared as if his eyes would start out of his head. It was horrid to see. The young lady came stalking up to me. She spoke that cold and haughty as if I was the dirt under her feet; which perhaps she thought I was.