Edith was a little disappointed. “Why? Stranger things have happened before this.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say that stranger things would probably happen, but he only laughed.
“We know nothing of their past—that is, before they came to Beech Lodge—and their future is their own. It’s too delicate a business. Perkins doesn’t like Martin, though she was bound to recommend him as an excellent gardener, and it would be stretching the point a good deal to imagine that she is anything to him. She hardly speaks to him as it is. Didn’t you say just now that she was not the marrying kind?”
“Yes, I did; but since there’s no probability of my arranging my own wedding, I rather like to potter about with other people’s. That may be useful to you, Jack, later on. As to Perkins, I dare say you’re right, and after all, if they did ultimately come together, it couldn’t be utterly festive, could it?”
“No,” he laughed, “it couldn’t. What else is there in the mind of the thoughtful Martha?”
“Nothing except that I’d like to make those two lives a bit more cheery, if I could; and naturally one’s mind pitches ahead.”
“It does,” he admitted. “Do you feel prophetic at the moment?”
She sent him a keen glance, at which he colored in spite of himself.
“I don’t believe, old boy, you’re quite ready for me to go on yet.”