The girl, hearing footsteps, had started to her feet. Jack remained seated, his long legs stretched out, and his lips curved derisively as Mostyn approached. Rada had flushed red and she took a step forward, as though she would have spoken to Mostyn; then she changed her mind and merely recognised his presence by a little perfunctory nod of her head. As for Mostyn himself, after a quick glance at Jack, he altogether ignored that individual. He raised his hat to Rada and passed on his way.
He walked on without turning his head, unconscious of the scowl that followed him and the muttered oath. But all the beauty had gone out of the day for him, all the colour from the trees and hedges. He saw a stretch of ugly, undulating, monotonous country, devoid of charm. It depressed him.
"What possesses her to care for a fellow like that?" he muttered under his breath. "A low-down cad, and one whom it isn't safe for her to be about with? She must know his reputation, and how everyone's talking about him and Daisy Simpson even now. Why, I saw him with Daisy only this morning outside the stables! I saw him kiss her." Mostyn waved his stick and viciously decapitated an unoffending dandelion as he spoke.
It was quite true that Jack Treves enjoyed, literally enjoyed, for he was proud of it, a bad reputation in Partinborough. Those gossips, the Willis's, were responsible for Mostyn's knowledge. Mrs. Willis hated to see her dearly beloved Rada in Jack's company, and spoke her mind fluently on the subject. "Let him stick to his Daisy Simpson," she said. "Daisy's good enough for the likes of him. They're birds of a feather. But Miss Rada is a lady, though her father's an old drunkard, and there's the width of the world between her and that scapegrace Jack."
Daisy Simpson, as Mostyn soon found out, was the daughter of a well-to-do farmer in the neighbourhood. She was, according to Mrs. Willis, a "fast lot," notorious for her flirtations.
Mostyn would not have enjoyed the conversation between Rada and Jack that followed his passing, had he overheard it. Yet, in a way, his mind might have been set at rest as to the existing relationship between the pair, and he would certainly have appreciated Rada's immediate championship of his name, when Jack applied an insulting epithet to it.
"None of that, please, Jack," said the girl firmly, lifting a small but authoritative hand. "I may laugh at Mr. Clithero, if I choose, to his face, but I won't hear him abused behind his back. That's not cricket. Remember that he offered to give me back Castor for nothing, though he's got some wild sort of notion in his head that he must win a Derby before I do. He was tricked into buying Castor—there's no blinking at that fact—and he has taken his disappointment like a man."
"Look here," said Jack, in a voice that would have been harsh had he been speaking to anyone but Rada, "I want to know how I stand. If I help you as you want me to——"
"As you have promised," she interrupted.
"Well, as I have promised. What I mean is, I can't have any sentimental foolery between you and any other chap, see? You say you won't marry me till this time next year in any case——"