CHAPTER IV.
ttr WHICH WE GO TO THE DRAWING-ROOM AND THi
PARTY BREAKS UP.
Wylder was surprised, puzzled, and a good deal in-
censed — that saucy craft had fired her shot so unexpec-
tedly across his bows. He looked a little flushed, and
darted a stealthy glance across the table, but no one he
thought had observed the manoeuvre. He would have
talked to ugly Mrs. W. Wylder, his sister-in-law, at his
left, but she was entertaining Lord Chelford now. He
had nothing for it but to perform cavalier seul with his
slice of mutton. He would have liked, at that moment,
a walk upon the quarter-deck, with a good head-wind
blowing, and liberty to curse and swear a bit over the
bulwark. Women are so full of caprice and hypocrisy,
and " humbugging impudence!"
Wylder was rather surly after the ladies had floated
away from the scene, and he drank his liquor dogged-
ly. It was his fancy, I suppose, to revive certain senti-
mental relations which had, it may be, once existed be-
tween him and Miss Lake; and he was a person of that
combative temperament that magnifies an object in pro-
portion as its pursuit is thwarted.
In the drawing-room he watched Miss Lake over his
cup of coffee, and after a few words to his JiancSe he
lounged toward the table at which she was turning over
some prints.
"Do come here, Dorothy," she exclaimed, not raising
her eyes, "I have found the very thing."