Part 73 (1/2)
”She had you.”
”Oh, I don't count, dear; I was only an acquaintance, and it had not had time to ripen into affection on her side. I soon began to love her, but I don't think she cared much for me.”
”Ah, it was a great mistake,” sighed Leigh.
”What was?” cried Jenny sharply.
”Our going down to Northwood. I lost a thousand pounds by the transaction.”
”And gained the dearest girl in the world to love.”
”Don't talk absurdly, child,” said Leigh, firmly. ”I beg that you will not speak to me in that tone about Miss Wilton. Has Claud been again?”
”I beg that you will not speak to me in that tone about Mr Wilton,”
said Jenny, with a mischievous look at her brother, who glanced at her sharply.
”Claud Wilton is not such a bad fellow after all, I begin to think. All that horsey caddishness will, I daresay, wear off.”
”I am sorry for the poor woman who has to rub it off,” said Jenny.
”You did not tell me if he had called.”
”Yes, he did call.”
”Jenny!”
”I didn't ask him to call, and he did not come to see me,” said the girl demurely. ”He wanted you, and left his card. I put it in the surgery.
I think he said he had some news of his cousin.”
”Indeed?” said Leigh, starting. ”When was this?”
”Yesterday evening. But Pierce, dear, surely it is nothing to you.
Don't go interfering, and perhaps make two poor people unhappy.”
Leigh turned upon her angrily.
”What a good little girl you would be, Jenny, if you had been born without a tongue.”
”Yes,” she said, ”but I should not have been half a woman, Pierce, dear.”
”Did he say when he would come again?”
”No.”
”Did he say more particularly what his news was?”
”No, dear, and I did not ask him, knowing how particular you are about my being at all intimate with him.”
He gave her an angry glance, but she ignored it.