Her holiday of peace
and liberation was interrupted--perhaps over, for who knew if he would
go away, after all, to-morrow? He might leave the house, driven out of
it by Kate Lumley, but that was nothing to prevent his taking rooms in
the village and coming up every day. This tyranny of one person over
another! And she was so miserably constructed that she wouldn't even
be able to frown him down without being misunderstood.
Scrap, who loved this time of the evening in her corner, felt
indignant with Mr. Briggs who was doing her out of it, and she turned
her back on the garden and him and went towards the house without a
look or a word. But Briggs, when he realized her intention, leapt to
his fee, snatched chairs which were not in her way out of it, kicked a
footstool which was not in her path on one side, hurried to the door,
which stood wide open, in order to hold it open, and followed her
through it, walking by her side along the hall.
What was to be done with Mr. Briggs? Well, it was his hall; she
couldn't prevent his walking along it.
"I hope," he said, not able while walking to take his eyes off
her, so that he knocked against several things he would otherwise have
avoided--the corner of a bookcase, an ancient carved cupboard, the
table with the flowers on it, shaking the water over--"that you are
quite comfortable here? If you're not I'll--I'll flay them alive.
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