"Poor----"
"Lord Pontefract, Theo. Oh, how _tiresome_ of mother!"
Joyselle frowned. "Do not call your mother tiresome," he said shortly.
"But who is this gentleman?"
Theo stood silently looking on. It was plain that it seemed to him quite
fitting that his father should arrange the matter.
"Lord Pontefract--a friend of--of ours," stammered Brigit, abashed by
the reproof as she had not been abashed for years.
"And do you want to see him?"
"No, no; I certainly do _not_ want to see him."
"Then I will go and tell him so."
"No, no. I--I had better go, don't you think, Theo?"
Poor Pontefract seemed rather piteous to her as he was discussed, and
her note had been curt and unsympathetic.
Theo looked up from his work of filling his pipe.
"I don't know. I should do as papa says."
"No. I must see him. I shall be back in a minute."
She ran downstairs almost into Pontefract's arms, for he had been left
in the passage by the horrified Toinon.
"Oh--sorry!" she exclaimed. "Come in here, will you?" "Here" was the
unused "salon" of the house, and in its austere ugliness would have
attracted the girl's attention at any other time. But she had now before
her something she had never seen, a perfectly sober Pontefract.
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