Then he added: “Go to your grandfather, my dear. Maybe, after all, the old scamp is safer than the young.”
“Yes,” she said, striving to steady her voice. “I mustn’t come hither again.”
She turned and moved away a step or two, her pretty head hanging. Suddenly she faced about, and came at our gentleman with a little spit of passion.
“I trusted you, and it was unfair. And I came to give your honour warning, and now I won’t!”
The words were hardly out of her lips when her eyes were drowned in tears.
“Yes, yes—I will, I will!” she cried, and buried her face in her hands.
Tuke smiled and put his arm again about the girl. She showed no sign of resentment—even allowed herself to be pulled a trifle closer to him.
“Betty, my little wench—what is it all? What is the to-do?”
“Oh!” she looked up at him through blinking lashes—“there are evil men about.”
“Why, so I know, my dear. And what then?”