"What devil’s tomfoolery is this?" he shouted. "What new pose have we here? What’s this confounded rotten, absurd business about, a twopenny ha’penny housemaid’s wedding, hey? Haven’t I asked, unofficially of course, but asked all the same a hundred people? Haven’t Bellendon and the Cathcarts and—and George Royhills and his wife practically delayed their departure from Town for this wedding, and now—now what rotten nonsense have you got in your head now, hey?"
She eyed him steadily. "Please don’t swear at me, father?" she said. "There is no need. I asked Allan——"
"Asked Allan, hang and confound Allan! Ain’t I anyone? Don’t I count? I’m only your father! Haven’t I planned this for you, haven’t I cherished the idea of making you a rich woman, haven’t I——?" He paused, floundering wildly in his fury.
"I asked Allan to humor me, I wanted a very quiet wedding, he was quite willing, as eager as I almost. He spoke to his father and his father has agreed——"
"His father! that confounded old City shark, that common, vulgar old brute, who—who——"
"Whom you are very pleased and glad to take money from, who has treated me with every kindness and respect and gave way at once to my wishes, though they were opposed to his own. Yes, a common old man, but generous and kind and good and—and I could wish, I could wish that my father was as fine a gentleman!" And with a stately curtsey, she left him.
"Well, I’ll be damned!" His Lordship said in utter amazement.
"You’ve got my wishes, Abram, you have!" said Mrs. Hanson.
Abram Lestwick was of that curious, foreign type that one comes on unexpectedly in our English country villages. He was about thirty-two years of age, five feet nine in height and of a strong wiry build. His complexion was swarthy, the skin sallow and drawn with a strange suggestion of tightness, over the high and prominent cheek bones. The eyes were small, black and very bright and deeply set beneath heavy brows. No razor had ever touched the lower part of his face, which was covered with a thin and straggling growth of coarse black hair, that could scarcely be described as a "beard," for so thinly and far apart did the hairs grow that the contour of a weak chin was clearly visible.