“I don’t suppose she would have come at all if she had known what a beastly, inhospitable place Beechfield is,” said Jack sharply.  Though he was in such a hurry to be off, he waited in order to add:  “She’s been here nearly a month, and you’ve never called on her yet—­it’s too bad!”

Janet Tosswill flushed deeply.  Jack had not spoken to her in such a tone since he was fifteen.

“What nonsense!  She must be indeed silly and affected,” she exclaimed, “if she expected me to pay her a formal call, especially as we had her in to supper the very first day she was here!  I might retort by saying that she might have sent or called to know how poor old Nanna was!  Everyone in the village has done so—­but then your friend, Jack, is not what my father used to call ’18 carat’!”

“I think it’s we who are not ‘18 carat,’” he answered furiously.  “We have shown Mrs. Crofton the grossest discourtesy, and I happen to know that she feels it very much.”

Janet Tosswill looked at her elder stepson with a feeling of blank amazement.  It had often astonished her to notice how completely Jack had his emotions and temper under control.  Yet here he was, his face aglow with anger, his voice trembling with rage.

Poor Janet!  She had had long days of fatigue and worry since the old nurse’s accident, and suddenly she completely lost her temper.  “I don’t want to say anything unkind about the little woman, but I do think her both silly and second-rate.  I took a dislike to her when she behaved in such a ridiculous manner over Flick.”

“You were almost as frightened as she was,” said Jack roughly.

“It’s quite true that I was frightened for a moment, but only because I was afraid for Timmy.”

“I can tell you one thing—­she won’t come here again to supper unless I can give her my word that all our dogs are really shut up.  And I fear I must ask you to undertake to see that Timmy does not let Flick out after I have shut him up.”

Janet Tosswill held out her hand.  “I think you’d better give me that note back,” she said curtly.  “We certainly don’t want anyone here of the kind you have just described.  From something Godfrey said to me it’s clear that Mrs. Crofton’s horror of dogs is just a pose she thinks makes her interesting.  Why, her husband bred terriers; Flick actually came from there!  And Godfrey says that she herself had a little dog called by the absurd name of ‘Boo-boo’ to which she was devoted.”

“‘Boo-boo’ was the exception that proves the rule,” answered Jack hotly.  “As for Colonel Crofton, it was beastly of him to breed terriers, knowing how his wife felt about dogs!  She told me herself she would never have married him if she had known there was any likelihood of that coming to pass.  She feels about dogs as some people feel about cats.”

“I never heard such nonsense!”

“Nonsense?” he repeated in an enraged tone.  “It isn’t nonsense!  The best proof that that horror of dogs is instinctive with her is the effect that she herself has on every dog she comes across.  That was shown the evening she was here.”