“Thank you, I’ll walk,” said Frank, fiercely.

* * * * *

“Now, will you please explain to me why you look like that, and talk like that?” said Marcella, with cutting composure, when she was once more in the library, and Frank, crimson to the roots of his hair, and saying incoherent things, had followed her there.

“I should think you might guess,” said Frank, in reproachful misery, as he hung over the fire.

“Not at all!” said Marcella; “you are rude to Betty, and disagreeable to me, by which I suppose that you are unhappy.  But why should you be allowed to show your feelings, when other people don’t?”

Frank fairly groaned.

“Well,” he said, making efforts at a tragic calm, and looking for his hat, “you will, none of you, be troubled with me long.  I shall go home to-morrow, and take my ticket for California the day after.”

"You," said Marcella, “go to California!  What right have you to go to California?”

“What right?” Frank stared, then he went on impetuously.  “If a girl torments a man, as Betty has been tormenting me, there is nothing for it, I should think, but to clear out of the way.  I am going to clear out of the way, whatever anybody says.”

“And shoot big game, I suppose—­amuse yourself somehow?”

Frank hesitated.

“Well, a fellow can’t do nothing,” he said helplessly.  “I suppose I shall shoot.”

“And what right have you to do it?  Have you any more right than a public official would have to spend public money in neglecting his duties?”

Frank stared at her.

“Well, I don’t know what you mean,” he said at last, angrily; “give it up.”

“It’s quite simple what I mean.  You have inherited your father’s property.  Your tenants pay you rent, that comes from their labour.  Are you going to make no return for your income, and your house, and your leisure?”

“Ah! that’s your Socialism!” cried the young fellow, roused by her tone.  “No return?  Why, they have the land.”

“If I were a thorough-going Socialist,” said Marcella, steadily, “I should say to you, Go!  The sooner you throw off all ties to your property, the sooner you prove to the world that you and your class are mere useless parasites, the sooner we shall be rid of you.  But unfortunately I am not such a good Socialist as that.  I waver—­I am not sure of what I wish.  But one thing I am sure of, that unless people like you are going to treat their lives as a profession, to take their calling seriously, there are no more superfluous drones, no more idle plunderers than you, in all civilised society!”

Was she pelting him in this way that she might so get rid of some of her own inner smart and restlessness?  If so, the unlucky Frank could not guess it.  He could only feel himself intolerably ill-used.  He had meant to pour himself out to her on the subject of Betty and his woes, and here she was rating him as to his duties, of which he had hardly as yet troubled himself to think, being entirely taken up either with his grievances or his enjoyments.