“What in the world is wrong, Neaera?”
“You will hear, Gerald, soon. But you shall hear it from him. I will not—no, I will not be the first. But, Gerald dear, you will not believe anything against me?”
“Does George say anything against you?”
Neaera threw her arms round his neck. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Then let him take care what it is. Neaera, tell me.”
“No, no, no! He shall tell you first.”
She was firm; and Gerald went away, a very mass of amazement and wrath.
But Neaera said to herself, when she was alone, “I think that was right. But, oh dear, oh dear! what a fuss about”—she paused, and added—“nothing!”
And even if it were not quite nothing, if it were even as much as a pair of shoes, the effect did threaten to be greatly out of proportion to the cause. Old Dawkins, and the fussy clerk, and the fat policeman could never have thought of such a coil as this, or surely, in defiance of all the laws of the land, they would have let that nameless damsel go.