He looked at her, feeling her devil of a will.

“Would it?” he said in the normal English. “Would it? Would anything that was said between you and me be quite natural, unless you said you wished me to hell before your sister ever saw me again: and unless I said something almost as unpleasant back again? Would anything else be natural?”

“Oh yes!” said Hilda. “Just good manners would be quite natural.”

“Second nature, so to speak!” he said: then he began to laugh. “Nay,” he said. “I’m weary o’ manners. Let me be!”

Hilda was frankly baffled and furiously annoyed. After all, he might show that he realized he was being honoured. Instead of which, with his playacting and lordly airs, he seemed to think it was he who was conferring the honour. Just impudence! Poor misguided Connie, in the man’s clutches!