"Not much. Oh, yes!" she added impulsively. "He said you and he could probably come to an understanding quickly enough if--"
"That was only because he dislikes women, I think. He said--if Claire--Mrs. Huntington, he said,--would let you alone."
"I?" cried Claire. It was almost a scream of astonishment and indignation.
"I'll show him!" shouted Huntington. "He'd better keep her name out of it, or I'll--"
"I haven't done anything!" wailed Claire.
"I'll make him pay for that!" bellowed Huntington, bringing his fist down on the mantel.
"You mustn't blame him!" protested Marion hastily. "He was angry at me, and I don't think he's as bad as you think he is."
"Marion!" cried Claire, her eyes widening with wonder.
Then Marion had the misfortune to blush under Claire's curious gaze. She blushed, at first, merely because she had gone too far in her effort to clear Haig of responsibility for what had occurred that evening; and then the blood stormed into her cheeks as she encountered Claire's look, and attached a deeper meaning to it than it actually conveyed.
Huntington leaned forward, and gazed suspiciously into Marion's crimsoned face.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he broke out. "You'd think the girl was in love with this ruffian!"
For an instant there was a silence much like the silence that follows a clap of thunder. Then Marion rose slowly to her feet, quivering, her eyes ablaze.
"Ruffian?" she cried. "If there's any ruffian it's--"
She caught herself. She was innately gentle and fastidious, and she could not, without shame, have forced her lips to say the things that she felt in her outraged heart. But she looked at him; and under that look Seth quailed and shrank. What had he said to evoke this luminous hatred? He had not meant--
"And I think she's right, Seth Huntington!" exclaimed Claire, coming to Marion, and putting an arm, around her. "If there's any ruffian it's you, and I'm ashamed of you!"
Huntington's jaw dropped, and he stared at them, his eyes bulging with astonishment. Then suddenly he turned, and bolted from the room. The door leading to the kitchen was flung shut behind him; then the outer door banged; and in a moment his heavy footsteps were heard on the veranda, where he strode to and fro in helpless rage and shame and wonder. He had a feeling of soreness over all his body, as if some one had roundly pummelled him; his face itched beneath his beard; he could not find a comfortable place for his hands. Well, he agreed with Haig about one thing: women were hell! And here was Claire siding with Marion against him; and calling him a ruffian! Was he a ruffian? What had he said to merit that? Couldn't they take a joke? But this casuistry did not go down, though he tried to hammer it down with many violent gestures. He began to have certain qualms that he recognized as premonitory signs of weakening; and he struggled to bolster up his anger. Damn Haig! If he had only finished him that day in the timber, when the others had wanted to! But this was a vain regret. There remained the present situation. Gradually his steps faltered. He stopped often to look vacantly at the stars. They had nothing to say to him. He felt very solitary, alone in the world.