and drew himself up. "Now I warn you, Miss
Feverel," he said, "that this is no laughing matter. You are doing a
very foolish thing in keeping the letters--very foolish--ah! um! You
must, of course, see that--exceedingly foolish!"

He came to a pause. It was really rather difficult to know what to say
next.

"Ah, Mr. Trojan," she answered, "you must leave me to judge about the
foolishness of it. After all, they are my letters."

"Pure waste of time," he answered, his voice getting a little shrill.
"After all, there can be no question about it. We _must_ have the
letters--we are ready to go to some lengths to obtain them--even--ah,
um--money----"

"Now, Mr. Trojan," she said quickly, "you are scarcely polite. But I
am sure that you will see no reason for prolonging this interview when
I say that, under no circumstances whatever, can I return the letters.
That is my unchanging decision."

He had no words; he stared at her, dumb with astonishment. This open
defiance was the very last thing that he had expected. Then, at last--

"You refuse?" he said with a little gasp.

"Yes," she answered lightly, "and I cannot see anything very
astonishing in my refusal. They are my property, and it is nobody
else's business at all."

"But it is," he almost screamed. "Business! Why, I should think it
was! Do you think we want to have a scandal throughout the kingdom?
Do you imagine that it would be pleasant for us to have our name in all
the papers--our name that has never known disgrace since the days of
William the Conqueror? You can have," he added solemnly, "very little
idea of the value of a name if you imagine that we are going to
tolerate its abuse in this fashion. Dear me, no!"

He was growing quite red at the thought of his possible failure. The
things in the room annoyed him--the everlasting rustling on the
mantelpiece--a staring photograph of Mr. Feverel, deceased, that seemed
to follow him, protestingly, round and round the room--a corner of a
dusty grey road seen dimly through dirty window-panes; why did people
live in such a place--or, rather, why did such people live at all?--and
to think that it was people like that who dared to threaten Trojan
honour! How could Robin have been such a fool!

So, feeling that the situation was so absurd that argument was out of
place, he began to bluster--

"Come now, Miss Feverel--this won't do, you know! it won't really.
It's too absurd--quite ridiculous.