Jean could not in the least have told what it was in the utterance which made her colour deepen. She was not given to blushing; and till this moment she had firmly believed that no human being beyond their two selves knew of the state of affairs between herself and Cyril. Jean had never breathed a word on the subject; and she had no idea of what Cyril had impulsively said to Miss Devereux.
Sybella, being—from her point of view, wisely—desirous to keep the notion a dead secret, had only let it slip to Lady Lucas, and Lady Lucas had only told a dozen other people, always under a strict pledge of secrecy. The tale thus weighted had travelled slowly: still, it had travelled.
A faint whisper of it even reached Jem, and in that direction went no farther. Gossip was apt to fall back, innocuous, from the shield of Mrs. Trevelyan's gentle density; and if the story as expressed in airy undulations, ever pattered on the drums of her ears, it had failed to reach her brain. Nobody had mentioned it to Jean; for people were a little afraid of Jean, unless they knew her well; and the few who did know her well, were the last who would have said anything.
So until now she had been able to speak of Cyril easily and without a blush, because she never supposed anybody to suspect how matters lay. Indeed, Jean herself was by no means sure how things did or would lie. Cyril wrote her constantly and freely; but they always had corresponded from childhood; and Cyril did not use lover-like terms. He had attempted it at first, and Jean had made no response, being determined to leave him free; so he had dropped the attempt. That was now over two years ago; and two years are a long time under the age of twenty-four.
Whatever amount of questioning had gone on below the surface with Jean, she had till this instant shown no consciousness in connection with Cyril. And now, all in a moment, without warning, at the sound of his name, uttered in a tone of peculiar meaning, her cheeks flamed.
Miss Atherstone's sharp little eyes ran all over Jean. "Yes?" she said, and waited, as if most willing to act feminine confessor. "Yes? It has been a long separation!"
"Very long," Jean replied, looking her caller straight in the face, though unable to control her own colouring. "But if my father comes home strong again, I shall not regret the parting."
Miss Atherstone sighed lugubriously—quite à la Sybella.
"And one may hope—" she said. "One may hope—! Travel does improve the mind! At least, people say so. Sir Cyril was so young—painfully young, poor boy, before he went out! One cannot but hope, at least, that his most unfortunate attachment to that little Miss Lucas—a merely passing fancy, no doubt—"
Another wave of colour swept into the first, and Jean was wroth with herself. She sat resolutely upright, her eyes shining with an angry gleam. Was that tale known too? Could nothing ever be hidden in Dutton? But she only said, "Miss Lucas?"