“Good morning, Mrs. Wylder!” he said. “What a lovely morning it is.”

“Is it? I know nothing about it. The climate here is brutal.”

He knew she regarded him as the objectionable agent of a more objectionable heaven.

“You would not dislike it so much if you met it out-of-doors. A walk on a day like this—”

“Pray, who authorized you to come and offer me advice? Have I concealed from you, Mr. Wingfold, that your presence gives me no pleasure?”

“You certainly have not. You have been quite honest with me. I did not come in the hope of pleasing you—though I wish I could.”

“Then perhaps you will explain why you are here!”

“There are visits that must be made, even when you are certain of giving annoyance,” answered Wingfold cheerfully.

“That means you consider yourself justified in forcing your way into my room, before I am dressed, with the simple intention of making yourself disagreeable?”

“If I were here on my own business, you might well blame me. But what would you say to one of your men who told you he dared not go out to deliver a message you gave him for fear of the lightning?”

“I would tell him he was a coward and to go about his business.”

“Well, that’s what I don’t want to be told by my master, that I am a coward.”

“And for fear of being told it, you dare me?”

“Well—if you want to put it like that, yes.”

“I admire your courage. But I like you no more for it. You’re not afraid of me and I’m not afraid of you! It’s a low trade, yours.”

“What is my trade?”

“To talk goody religion when there’s nothing to it!”

“I’m not doing much of that sort at this moment,” rejoined Wingfold with a laugh.

“You know this is not the place for it!”

“Would you mind telling me where is the place to read a French novel?”

“In church—there!!”

“What would you do if I were to insist on reading a chapter of the Bible here?”

“Look!” she answered, and rising, snatched a saloon pistol from the mantel and took deliberate aim at him.

Wingfold looked straight down the throat of the thick barrel and did not budge.

“I would shoot you with this,” she went on. “It would kill you, for I can shoot and would hit you in the eye. I shouldn’t mind being hanged for it. Nothing matters now.”

She flung the heavy weapon from her, gave a great cry like an enraged animal, and began tearing at her handkerchief. The pistol fell in the middle of the room. Wingfold went and picked it up.

He laid the pistol on the table. “You don’t fight fair, Mrs. Wylder, for you know I can’t take a pistol into the pulpit and shoot you. It is cowardly of you to take advantage like that.”

“Do I read so as to annoy anyone?”

“Yes, you do. You don’t dare read aloud. But you annoy as many of the congregation as can see you, and you annoy me. Why should you behave in that house as if it were your own, and yet shoot me if I behaved so in yours? Is it fair? Is it polite? Is it acting like a lady?”