"Anyway you needn't shout the house down. I ain't deaf," said Mrs. Plunkett.
"What makes you think anything o' the sort?" demanded Plunkett, in a lower key.
"Well, he said yesterday he'd had a chance of work, some miles off; and he said he wasn't going. He didn't mean to leave the place, not for nobody. And he looked at Marigold, and Marigold she got as red as anything. That's more work he's thrown up, when he might have got it."
"Marigold shan't marry Todd. That's settled," said Plunkett decisively.
But to say that a thing is settled is by no means identical with actually settling it.
Todd continued to come often to the house, despite a rigidly cold shoulder turned to him by Mrs. Plunkett. He did not care a brass farthing for Mrs. Plunkett, so long as Marigold smiled upon him. Plunkett, who might have done more, was not at all a good hand at turning cold shoulders. He could get into a brief rage, and speak out his mind loudly; but a course of quiet checking was beyond his power. He enjoyed seeing a friend; and, apart from Todd's idle inclinations, he liked the young fellow, and he preferred to leave disagreeable lines of action to his wife. So he welcomed Todd genially still, when the latter appeared, while privately exhorting Mrs. Plunkett to "see that things didn't go wrong."
Perhaps it was not surprising that Marigold liked Todd's attentions. She was, it is true, a very sensible girl in most respects; but she was extremely young, and she had of course her little feminine vanities. It flattered her vanity to be admired and run after by so big and comely a young man. To be sure, his slowness was sometimes a little exasperating; and she did wish he would find something to do, and would stick to it. But he always assured her that he was only waiting for "the right thing," and she did not realise that "the right thing" in Todd's eyes meant simply no hard work at all.
Mrs. Plunkett's frequent harsh words of blame about his laziness acted in a reverse fashion upon Marigold, driving her to find excuses for him. She was sure Todd was not lazy, only unfortunate so far; and indeed, to hear him talk, one might almost have imagined that he was the steadiest toiler in existence, when only he had the chance.
Moreover, he had such a pleasant manner. Everybody was agreed on that point. The manner alone was enough to take captive Marigold's girlish fancy.
Beside all this, she was not happy in her home.