As he raised himself from the placing of his cap and stick he was obliged to utter a sharp, "What?"
"Adare."
"Oh. Adare!"
It is not a bad name as names go; we like to fancy ourselves connected with the famous Fighting Adares of the County Limerick; but on J. Howard Brokenshire's lips it had the undiscriminating commonness of Smith or Jones. I had never been ashamed of it before.
"And you're one of my daughter's—"
"I'm her nursery governess."
"Sit down."
As he took the chair at the end of the table I dropped again into that at the side from which I had risen. It was then that something happened which left me for a second in doubt as to whether to take it as comic or catastrophic. His left eye closed; his left nostril quivered; he winked. To avoid having to face this singular phenomenon a second time I lowered my eyes and began mechanically to sew.
"Put that down!"
I placed the work on the table and once more looked at him. The striking eyes were again as striking as ever. In their sympathetic hardness there was nothing either ribald or jocose.
I suppose my scrutiny annoyed him, though I was unconscious of more than a mute asking for orders. He pointed to a distant chair, a chair in a corner, just within the loggia as you come from the direction of the dining-room.
"Sit there."
I know now that his wink distressed him. It was something which at that time had come upon him recently, and that he could neither control nor understand. A less imposing man, a man to whom personal impressiveness was less of an asset in daily life and work, would probably have been less disturbed by it; but to J. Howard Brokenshire it was a trial in more ways than one. Curiously, too, when the left eye winked the right grew glassy and quite terrible.
Not knowing that he was sensitive in this respect, I took my retreat to the corner as a kind of symbolic banishment.
"Hadn't I better stand up?" I asked, proudly, when I had reached my chair.
"Be good enough to sit down."
I seemed to fall backward. The tone had the effect of a shot. If I had ever felt small and foolish in my life it was then. I flushed to my darkest crimson. Angry and humiliated, I was obliged to rush to my maxim in order not to flash back in some indignant retort.
And then another thing happened of which I was unable at the minute to get the significance. Mrs. Brokenshire sprang up with the words:
"You're quite right, Howard. It's ever so much cooler over here by the edge. I never felt anything so stuffy as the middle of this place. It doesn't seem possible for air to get into it."
While speaking she moved with incomparable daintiness to a chair corresponding to mine and diagonally opposite. With the length and width of the loggia between us we exchanged glances. In hers she seemed to say, "If you are banished I shall be banished too"; in mine I tried to express gratitude. And yet I was aware that I might have misunderstood both movement and look entirely.
My next surprise was in the words Mr. Brokenshire addressed to me. He spoke in the soft, slightly nasal staccato which I am told had on his business associates the effect of a whip-lash.
"We've come over to tell you, Miss—Miss Adare, how much we appreciate your attitude toward our boy, Hugh. I understand from him that he's offered to marry you, and that very properly in your situation you've declined. The boy is foolish, as you evidently see. He meant nothing; he could do nothing. You're probably not without experience of a similar kind among the sons of your other employers. At the same time, as you doubtless expect, we sha'n't let you suffer by your prudence—"
It was a bad beginning. Had he made any sort of appeal to me, however unkindly worded, I should probably have yielded. But the tradition of the Fighting Adares was not in me for nothing, and after a smothering sensation which rendered me speechless I managed to stammer out:
"Won't you allow me to say that—"
The way in which his large, white, handsome hand went up was meant to impose silence upon me while he himself went on:
"In order that you may not be annoyed by my son's folly in the future you will leave my daughter's employ, you'll leave Newport—you'll be well advised, indeed, in going back to your own country, which I understand to be the British provinces. You will lose nothing, however, by this conduct, as I've given you to understand. Three—four—five thousand dollars—I think five ought to be sufficient—generous, in fact—"
"But I've not refused him," I was able at last to interpose. "I—I mean to accept him."
There was an instant of stillness during which one could hear the pounding of the sea.
"Does that mean that you want me to raise your price?"
"No, Mr. Brokenshire. I have no price. If it means anything at all that has to do with you, it's to tell you that I'm mistress of my acts and that I consider your son—he's twenty-six—to be master of his."
There was a continuation of the stillness. His voice when he spoke was the gentlest sound I had ever heard in the way of human utterance. If it were not for the situation it could have been considered kind:
"Anything at all that has to do with me? You seem to attach no importance to the fact that Hugh is my son."
I do not know how words came to me. They seemed to flow from my lips independently of thought.
"I attach importance only to the fact that he's a man. Men who are never anything but their father's sons aren't men."
"And yet a father has some rights."
"Yes, sir; some. He has the right to follow where his grown-up children lead. He hasn't the right to lead and require his grown-up children to follow."
He shifted his ground. "I'm obliged to you for your opinion, but at present it's not to the point—"
I broke in breathlessly: "Pardon me, sir; it's exactly to the point. I'm a woman; Hugh's a man. We're—we're in love with each other; it's all we have to be concerned with."
"Not quite; you've got to be concerned—with me."
"Which is what I deny."
"Oh, denial won't do you any good. I didn't come to hear your denials, or your affirmations, either. I've come to tell you what to do."
"But if I know that already?"
"That's quite possible—if you mean to play your game as doubtless you've played it before. I only want to warn you—"
I looked toward Mrs. Brokenshire for help, but her eyes were fixed on the floor, on which she was drawing what seemed like a design with the tip of her parasol. The greyhounds were stretched at her feet. I could do nothing but speak for myself, which I did with a calmness that surprised me.
"Mr. Brokenshire," I interrupted, "you are a man and I'm a woman. What's more, you're a strong man, while I'm a woman with no protection at all. I ask you—do you think you're playing a man's part in insulting me?"
His tone grew kind almost to affection. "My dear young lady, you misunderstand me. Insult couldn't be further from my thoughts. I'm speaking entirely for your own sake. You're young; you're very pretty; I won't say you've no knowledge of the world because I see you have—"
"I've a good deal of knowledge of the world."
"Only not such knowledge as would warrant you in pitting yourself against me."
"But I don't. If you'd leave me alone—"
"Let us keep to what we're talking of. I'm sorry for you; I really