"You beautiful child, I want you to stay with me and not go star-gazing with that large and sunburnt man. You’ll stay, won’t you, darling? And we’ll go to the library presently and find a pretty red and gold book full of armorial designs and snobbish information; and we’ll search very patiently through those expensively illuminated pages until we find a worthy family called D’Aurès——"
"Oh, Peggy!" said Philippa. "Would you really take so much trouble?"
"Rather!" said Peggy coolly. "I mean to write him some day and find out how he is treating my pet Minerva runabout which he had the audacity to appropriate without thanking me."
Philippa laughed rather shyly, not entirely comprehending the balance between badinage and sincerity in Peggy’s threat, but realizing that any freedom she permitted herself was her prerogative.
Warner, lingering at the other door, caught Peggy’s eye.
"You can’t have her, Jim!" she said with emphasis, and drew her closer.
So Warner went on to find a wrap for her, and entered the music room.
The next moment he halted, rigid, astounded.
Peering through the windows into the room were the dirty countenances of Asticot and Squelette, their battered noses flattened white on the glass, their ratty eyes fixed on him.
That the precious pair believed Warner to be paralyzed with terror was evident.
As long as he remained motionless they glared at him, their faces and spread fingers flattened against the windowpane. Then, the next instant, he was after them at one bound, jerking open the glass door, out across the terrace where the two young ruffians, evidently surprised and confused by his headlong behavior, parted company, Squelette digging up gravel in his headlong flight down the drive, Asticot darting across the lawn where, beyond the stables, a hospitable tangle of shrubbery seemed to promise easy escape.
But Asticot was awfully wrong; in the darkness he rushed full speed into an elastic barrier of mesh wire which supported the hedge of sweet peas separating garage and stables; and as he rebounded, Warner caught him and coolly began to beat him up.
The beating was deliberate, methodical, and merciless; the blows fell with smart cracks upon the features of Asticot, right, left, sometimes hoisting him off his large, flat feet, sometimes driving him dizzily earthward; but another blow and a savage jerk always brought him up to be swung on again, battered, knocked flying, and finally smashed into merciful insensibility.