But Mr. Pope was giving himself up to a towering rage. "You damned
scoundrel!" he said. "What the devil are you doing?" He seized Marjorie
by the arm and drew her towards him. "My poor misguided girl!" he said,
and suddenly she was tensely alive, a little cry of horror in her
throat, for her father, at a loss for words and full of heroic rage, had
suddenly swung his stick with passionate force, and struck at Trafford's
face. She heard the thud, saw Trafford wince and stiffen. For a
perfectly horrible moment it seemed to her these men, their faces
queerly distorted by the shadows of the branches in the slanting
moonlight, might fight. Then she heard Trafford's voice, sounding cool
and hard, and she knew that he would do nothing of the kind. In that
instant if there had remained anything to win in Marjorie it was
altogether won. "I asked your daughter to meet me here," he said.
"Be off with you, sir!" cried Mr. Pope. "Don't tempt me further, sir,"
and swung his stick again. But now the force had gone out of him.
Trafford stood with a hand out ready for him, and watched his face.
"I asked your daughter to meet me here, and she came. I am prepared to
give you any explanation----"
"If you come near this place again----"
For some moments Marjorie's heart had been held still, now it was
beating violently. She felt this scene must end. "Mr. Trafford," she
said, "will you go. Go now. Nothing shall keep us apart!"
Mr. Pope turned on her. "Silence, girl!" he said.
"I shall come to you to-morrow," said Trafford.
"Yes," said Marjorie, "to-morrow."
"Marjorie!" said Mr. Pope, "_will_ you go indoors."
"I have done nothing----"
"Be off, sir."
"I have done nothing----"
"Will you be off, sir? And you, Marjorie--will you go indoors?"
He came round upon her, and after one still moment of regard for
Trafford--and she looked very beautiful in the moonlight with her hair a
little disordered and her face alight--she turned to precede her father
through the shrubbery.
Mr. Pope hesitated whether he should remain with Trafford.
A perfectly motionless man is very disconcerting.
"Be off, sir," he said over his shoulder, lowered through a threatening
second, and followed her.
But Trafford remained stiffly with a tingling temple down which a little
thread of blood was running, until their retreating footsteps had died
down into that confused stirring of little sounds which makes the
stillness of an English wood at night.
Then he roused himself with a profound sigh, and put a hand to his cut
and bruised cheek.
"_Well!_" he said.