10/43 I shouldn't have taken it if I hadn't had a very urgent reason." "Well, what the devil is it ?" Dacre spoke with the exasperation of a man who knows himself to be at a disadvantage. "If you want to know my opinion, I regard such conduct as damned intrusive at such a time. But if you've any decent excuse let's hear it!" He had never adopted that tone to Monck before, but he had been rudely jolted out of his usually complacent attitude, and he resented Monck's presence. Moreover, an unpleasant sense of inferiority had begun to make itself felt. There was something judicial about Monck--something inexorable and condemnatory--something that aroused in him every instinct of self-defence. |