“The wretch!  Boy, indeed!” Allen said, bristling with indignation at this fling at his youth, but feeling a strange stir in his young blood at the thought of this fair creature being after him.

Arrived at the Ridge House, Daisy went directly to her room and had the headache all day; and gave Mrs. Browne a most exaggerated account of her interview with her aunt, but omitted the part pertaining to Lord Hardy and Allen, the latter of whom hovered disconsolately near the door of her room and sent her messages and a bouquet, and was radiant with delight when after tea-time she was so far restored as to be able to join the family upon the piazza.  It was Allen who brought a pillow for her, and a footstool, and asked if she was in a draught, and when she said she was, moved her chair at her request nearer to Lord Hardy, who scarcely looked at her, and did not manifest the slightest interest in her headache, or in her.  Nothing which Daisy could do was of any avail to attract him to her, and she tried every wile and art upon him during the next few days, but to no purpose.  At last, when she had been at the Ridge House a week, and she had an opportunity of seeing him alone, she said, in a half playful, half complaining voice: 

“What is it, Teddy?  What has come between us that you are so cold to me?  Has the fair Gusty, as her mother calls her, driven from your mind all thoughts of your old friend?  You used to care for me, Teddy, in the good old days when we were all so happy together.  Don’t you like me a little now, and I so lonely and sad, and all the more so that I have to keep up and smile before these people, who, kind as they are, bore me with their vulgarities?  Say, Teddy, are you angry with me?”

As she talked Daisy had put her hand on that of Lord Hardy, who once would have thrilled at its touch, but who now shrank from it as something poisonous.  He knew the woman so thoroughly that nothing she could do or say would in the least affect him now, and when she asked if he were angry with her, he replied: 

“Not angry, no—­but, Mrs. McPherson—­”

“Oh, Teddy, now I know you hate me when you call me Mrs. McPherson,” Daisy sobbed, and he continued: 

“Well, Daisy, then, if that suits you better, I am not angry, but you must know that we can never again be to each other what we were in the days when I was foolish enough to follow where you led, even to my ruin.  All that is past, and I will not reproach you more; but, Daisy, I must speak one word of warning.  I owe so much to these kind people, whose vulgarities bore you, but do not prevent you from accepting their hospitality.  I am not blind to what you are doing.”