Sir Everard strode straight to the picture-gallery, his face pale, his eyes flashing, his hands clinched.

His step rang like steel along the polished oaken floor, and there was an ominous compression of his thin lips that might have warned Mr. Parmalee of the storm to come.  But Mr. Parmalee was squinting through his apparatus at a grim, old warrior on the wall, and only just glanced up to nod recognition.

“Morning, Sir Everard!” said the artist, pursuing his work.  “Fine day for our business—­uncommon spring-like.  You’ve got a gay old lot of ancestors here, and ancestresses; and stunningly handsome some of ’em is, too.”

“Spare your compliments, sir,” said the baronet, in tones of suppressed rage, “and spare me your presence here for the future altogether!  The sooner you pack your traps and leave this, the surer you will be of finding yourself with a sound skin.”

“Hey?” cried Mr. Parmalee, astounded.  “What in thunder do you mean?”

“I mean that I order you out of my house this instant, and that I’ll break every bone in your villainous carcass if ever I catch you inside my gates again!”

The artist dropped his tools and stood blankly staring.

“By ginger!  Why, Sir Everard Kingsland, I don’t understand this here!  You told me yourself I might come here and take the pictures.  I call this doosed unhandsome treatment—­I do, going back on a feller like this!”

“You audacious scoundrel!” roared the enraged young lord of Kingsland, “how dare you presume to answer me?  How dare you stand there and look me in the face?  If I called my servants and made them lash you outside the gates, I would only serve you right!  You low-bred, impertinent ruffian, how dare you write to my wife?”

“Whew!” he whistled, long and shrill, “that’s it, is it?  Look here, Sir Everard, don’t you get so tearin’ mad all for nothing.  I didn’t write no disrespect to her ladyship—­I didn’t, by Jupiter!  I jest had a little request to make, and if I could have seen her ladyship I wouldn’t have writ at all, but she kept out of my way, and—­”

“You scoundrel!” cried the passionate young baronet, white with fury, “do you mean to say my wife kept out of your way—­was afraid of you?”

“Exactly so, squire,” replied the imperturbable foreigner.  “She must ‘a’ known I had something to say to her yesterday when I——­ Well, she knowed it, and she kept out of my way—­I say it again.”

“And you dare tell me there is a secret between my wife and you?  Are you not afraid I will throw you out of yonder window?”

Mr. Parmalee drew himself stiffly up.

“Not if I know myself!  That is a game two can play at.  As for the secret,” with a sudden sneer, “I ain’t no desire to keep it a secret if your wife ain’t.  Ask her, Sir Everard, and if she’s willing to tell you, I’m sartin I am.  But I don’t think she will, by gosh!”