"No," said James. "It was Mrs. Prockter, I'm thinking."
"Has Mrs. Prockter spoken to you about me and—and Emanuel?"
James hesitated. But the devil-may-care, agreeably vicious Ollerenshaw impulses were afoot in him, and he did not hesitate long.
"Her has," said he.
"What a ridiculous, fat old woman she is, with her fancies!"
Frankly, James did not like this. He was in a mind to resent it, and then a certain instinct of self-preservation prompted him to seek cover in silence. But in any battle of the sexes silence is no cover to the male, as he ought to have known.
Helen pursued him behind his cover. "I wonder who she's setting her cap at! I suppose you'll not deny that she wears a cap?"
It was quite a long time since James Ollerenshaw had blushed; but he blushed at these words. Nothing could have been more foolish, inept, on his part. Why should he blush because Helen expressed a vague, hostile curiosity as to the direction of Mrs. Prockter's cap? What had the direction of Mrs. Prockter's cap to do with him? Yet blush he did. He grew angry, not—curiously enough—with Helen, but with himself and with Mrs. Prockter. His anger had the strange effect of making him an arrant coward. He got up from his chair, having pushed away his cup towards the centre of the table. As tea was over he was within his rights in doing so.
"I mun be getting to work again," he muttered.
"Please do wait a minute, uncle," she said, imperiously. "Can't you see I want to talk to you? Can't you see I've got something on my mind?"