She made a brusque movement. And then she beckoned him to follow her along the corridor, out of possible earshot of Mrs. Prockter.
"Do you mean to say, uncle," she demanded, putting the candle down on a small table that stood under a large oil-painting of Joshua and the Sun in the corridor, "that you've been discussing my affairs with Mrs. Prockter?"
He saw instantly that he had not been the sage he imagined himself to be. But he was not going to be bullied by Helen, or any other woman younger than Mrs. Prockter. So he stiffly brazened it out.
"Ay!" he said.
"I never heard of such a thing!" she exploded, but still whispering.
"You said as I must help ye, and I'm helping ye," said he.
"But I didn't mean that you were to go chattering about me all over Bursley, uncle," she protested, adopting now the pained, haughty, and over-polite attitude.
"I don't know as I've been chattering all over Bursley," he rebutted her. "I don't know as I'm much of a chatterer. I might name them as could give me a start and a beating when it comes to talking the nose off a brass monkey. Mrs. Prockter came in to inquire about what had happened here this afternoon, as well she might, seeing as Emanuel went home with a couple o' gallons o' my water in his pockets. So I told her all about it. Her's a very friendly woman. And her's promised to do what her can for ye."
"How?"
"Why, to get Andrew Dean for ye, seeing as ye're so fixed on him, wi' as little gossip as maybe."