“I’m sure I can’t imagine,” said Margaret, impatient.

“He proposed for you!”

Margaret reflected a brief instant.  “Nonsense!” she said decisively.  “He’s not that kind.  You misunderstood him.”

“I tell you he did!” cried her mother.  “And I ordered him out of the house.”

“What?” screamed Margaret, clutching her mother’s arm.  “What?”

“I ordered him out of the house,” stammered her mother.

“I wish you’d stick to your novels and let me attend to my own affairs,” cried Margaret, pale with fury.  “Is he gone?”

“I left Williams attending to it.  Surely, Rita—­”

But Margaret had flung the door open and was darting down the stairs.  “Where is he?” she demanded fiercely of Williams, still in the drawing-room doorway.

“In the garden, ma’am,” said Williams.  “He didn’t pay no attention.”

But Margaret was rushing through the drawing-room.  At the French windows she caught sight of him, walking up and down in his usual quick, alert manner, now smelling flowers, now staring up into the trees, now scrutinizing the upper windows of the house.  She drew back, waited until she had got her breath and had composed her features.  Then, with the long skirts of her graceful pale-blue dress trailing behind her, and a big white sunshade open and resting upon her shoulder, she went down the veranda steps and across the lawn toward him.  He paused, gazed at her in frank—­ vulgarly frank—­admiration; just then, it seemed to her, he never said or did or looked anything except in the vulgarest way.

“You certainly are a costly-looking luxury,” said he loudly, when there were still a dozen yards between them.  “Oh, there’s your mother at the window, upstairs—­her bedroom window.”

“How did you know it was her bedroom?” asked Margaret.

“While I was waiting for you to come down one day I sent for one of the servants and had him explain the lay of the house.”

“Really!” said Margaret, satirical and amused.  “I suppose there was no mail on the table or you’d have read that while you waited?”

“There you go, trying to say clever, insulting things.  Why not be frank?  Why not be direct?”

“Why should I, simply because you wish it?  You don’t half realize how amusing you are.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” retorted he, with a shrewd, quick glance from those all-seeing eyes of his.

“Half, I said.  You do half realize.  I told you once before that I knew what a fraud you were.”

“I play my game in my own way,” evaded he; “and it seems to be doing nicely, thank you.”

“But the further you go, the harder it’ll be for you to progress.”

“Then the harder for those opposing me.  I don’t make it easy for those who are making it hard for me.  I get ’em so busy nursing their own wounds that they’ve no longer time to bother me.  I’ve told you before, and I tell you again, I shall go where I please.”