Joan, passing through the hall, was again stopped by the Squire, who was standing at the door of his room. "I told you to fetch Humphrey," he said irritably. "Why have you been so long? I want to speak to him."
"I couldn't find him, father," said Joan.
"I asked you _where_ he was," persisted the Squire, and when she said he had been in the billiard-room, asked her what he was doing there.
"Talking to Lady Aldeburgh," said Joan; and the Squire asked her what _she_ was doing.
Then it came out. "Playing at cards with Mr. Trench," said Joan, who disliked Lady Aldeburgh and Bobby Trench equally, and didn't see why she shouldn't answer a plain question in plain terms.
Then the Squire went into his room, shutting the door decisively, and Humphrey went in after him, Joan having escaped for the second time.
Inside the Squire's room there was an outbreak. "I will not have it in this house. I simply _will not_ have it," was the burden of his indignant cry.
"Well, look here, father," said Humphrey quietly. "I didn't know what was happening, and directly I did I stopped them. They gave it up at once when I said you wouldn't like it. They couldn't tell, you know. Everybody does it now."
The Squire spluttered his wrath. "I call it disgraceful," he said. "I don't know what the world's coming to. Cards on Sunday in a respectable God-fearing house! And you defend it!"
"No, I don't," said Humphrey. "I told you that I had stopped them."
The Squire looked at him. "Did they want you to play?" he asked. "You and a girl like Lady Susan! You don't mean to tell me her mother wanted her to play? Is the girl accustomed to that sort of thing, I should like to know?"
Humphrey did not want to give Lady Aldeburgh away, but rather her than Susan, and rather Bobby Trench than either of them.
"Susan doesn't care about it," he said. "Lady Aldeburgh--well, you can see what she is, can't you?--nothing like as sensible as her daughter. She'll do what anybody wants her to."
"Oh, then it's Master Trench I'm to thank for making my house a gambling saloon on a Sunday!" exclaimed the Squire. "If he wasn't my guest, I would say something to that young cub that would surprise him. Anyhow, he'll never come into this house again, and I must say, seeing what he is, that I wonder at your asking him at all."