Chapter IV

The situation was a tragic one. Alicia Terrill trembling with indignation, a faint flush on her pretty face, and her forehead wrinkled in an angry frown, kept her voice steady with an effort, and looked down from the step ladder on which she stood, at the urbane young man on the other side of the wall.

He stood with his hands respectfully clasped behind his back, balancing himself on the edge of his tiny lawn, and regarded her without emotion. The grim evidence of the tragedy was hidden from his view, but he accepted her estimate of his action with disconcerting calmness.

Hank, discreetly hidden in the conservatory, was an interested eavesdropper.

The girl had time to notice that the Duke had a pleasant face, burnt and tanned by sun and wind, that he was clean-shaven, with a square, determined jaw and clear grey eyes that were steadfastly fixed on hers. In a way he was good looking, though she was too angry to observe the fact, and the loose flannel suit he wore did not hide the athletic construction of the man beneath.

"It is monstrous of you!" she said hotly, "you, a stranger here----"

"I know your cat," he said calmly.

"And very likely it wasn't poor Tibs at all that ate your wretched flowers."

"Then poor Tibs isn't hurt," said the Duke with a sigh of relief, "for the cat I shot at was making a hearty meal of my young chrysanthemums and----"

"How dare you say that!" she demanded wrathfully, "when the poor thing is flying round the house with a--with a wounded tail?"

The young man grinned.

"If I've only shot a bit off her tail," he said cheerfully, "I am relieved. I thought she was down and out."

She was too indignant to make any reply.

"After all," mused the Duke with admirable philosophy, "a tail isn't one thing or another with a cat--now a horse or a cow needs a tail to keep the flies away, a dog needs a tail to wag when he's happy, but a cat's tail----"

She stopped him with a majestic gesture. She was still atop of the ladder, and was too pretty to be ridiculous.

"It is useless arguing with you," she said coldly; "my mother will take steps to secure us freedom from a repetition of this annoyance."

"Send me a lawyer's letter," he suggested, "that is the thing one does in the suburbs, isn't it?"

He did not see her when she answered, for she had made a dignified descent from her shaky perch.

"Our acquaintance with suburban etiquette," said her voice coldly, "is probably more limited than your own."

"Indeed?" with polite incredulity.

"Even in Brockley," said the angry voice, "one expects to meet people----"

She broke off abruptly.

"Yes," he suggested with an air of interest. "People----?"

He waited a little for her reply. He heard a smothered exclamation of annoyance and beckoned Hank. That splendid lieutenant produce a step ladder and steadied it as the Duke made a rapid ascent.

"You were saying?" he said politely.

She was holding the hem of her dress and examining ruefully the havoc wrought on a flounce by a projecting nail.

"You were about to say----?"

She looked up at him with an angry frown.

"Even in Brockley it is considered an outrageous piece of bad manners to thrust oneself upon people who do not wish to know one!"

"Keep to the subject, please," he said severely; "we were discussing the cat."

She favoured him with the faintest shrug.

"I'm afraid I cannot discuss any matter with you," she said coldly, "you have taken a most unwarrantable liberty." She turned to walk into the house.

"You forget," he said gently, "I am a duke. I have certain feudal privileges, conferred by a grateful dynasty, one of which, I believe, is to shoot cats."

"I can only regret," she fired back at him, from the door of the little conservatory that led into the house, "that I cannot accept your generous estimate of yourself. The ridiculous court that is being paid to you by the wretched people in this road must have turned your head. I should prefer the evidence of De Gotha before I even accepted your miserable title."

Slam!

She had banged the door behind her.

"Here I say!" called the alarmed Duke, "please come back! Aren't I in De Gotha?"

He looked down on Hank.

"Hank," he said soberly, "did you hear that tremendous charge? She don't believe there is no Mrs. Harris!"