"Are they ever shut?"
"Now don't interrupt me, with your stupid jokes," protested her companion, with a touch of impatience. "I've seen, that you and him, for all your stand-off airs,—like one another right well."
"What makes you think so?"
"The use of my senses. I've noticed you smiling and jabbering together just like old times,—although you were only talking tennis; and I believe you're a bit jealous,—always a very healthy sign. Now, my dear child, take an old friend's advice, and don't make the mistake of your life! Good fortune, and a providential chance, have brought you and Mayne here together. Are you going to let him drift away?"
"But why do you talk as if I were the one to act and come forward?"
"Because you are! Now listen to me," seizing her hand in a firm grip, "it is for you to make the advance; you gave him the go-by; it was certainly an amazing act for a girl of your age. Now I think you have come to your senses; but he is frightened of your money. Yes!" she continued with emphasis, "he as good as told Teddy, and I dug it out of him,—that had you not been an heiress, he would have been willing to make it up!"
"He said that,—did he?" said Nancy with a quick catch in her breath.
"So Teddy informed me, and I have always found him to speak the truth. He told me, as a dead, dead, secret,—and mind you let it go no further, for if Teddy knew, he'd eat me,—although I am his mother-in-law! Seeing how things are, and being really fond of you, Nancy, I thought I'd not allow love to pass out of your life, without doing my best to interfere, and stop it."
Nancy's colour was high, her heart beat unusually fast; here, indeed, was a wonderful piece of information. So it was not altogether her unpardonable flight,—but the money, that stood between them. She sat for a long time in dead silence, with her eyes fixed upon the river. At last she murmured, "I don't see how I could possibly do it."
"You'll find it easy enough, once you and he are face to face; you will never have a chance here; never a moment together, unless when playing tennis: that gay lady in the boat, now lighting her cigarette on his, takes right good care of that!"