“If he should ever be fool enough to get in my way—”
“Hang Thimble-rig Jem,” cried Hazeltine. “Is it a bet, Lascelles?”
“What?”
“That you nab our one in half an hour?” Mr. Lascelles affected an aristocratic drawl. “No, I was joking. I couldn't afford to leave the fire for thirty pounds. Why should I run after the poor dayvil? Find him yourselves. He never annoyed me. Got a cigar, Miles?”
After their chops, etc., the rakes went off to finish the night elsewhere.
“There, they are gone at last! Why, Jenny, how pale you look!” said Robinson, not seeing the color of his own cheek. “What is wrong?” Jenny answered by sitting down and bursting out crying. Tom sat opposite her with his eyes on the ground.
“Oh, what I have gone through this day!” cried Jenny. “Oh! oh! oh! oh!” sobbing convulsively.
What could Tom do but console her? And she found it so agreeable to be consoled that she prolonged her distress. An impressionable Bohemian on one side a fireplace, and a sweet, pretty girl crying on the other, what wonder that two o'clock in the morning found this pair sitting on the same side of the fire aforesaid—her hand in his?
The next morning at six o'clock Jenny was down to make his breakfast for him before starting. If she had said, “Don't go,” it is to be feared the temptation would have been too strong, but she did not; she said sorrowfully, “You are right to leave this town.” She never explained. Tom never heard from her own lips how far her suspicions went. He was a coward, and seeing how shrewd she was, was afraid to ask her; and she was one of your natural ladies who can leave a thing unsaid out of delicacy.
Tom Robinson was what Jenny called “capital company.” He had won her admiration by his conversation, his stories of life, and now and then a song, and by his good looks and good nature. She disguised her affection admirably until he was in danger and about to leave her—and then she betrayed herself. If she was fire he was tow. At last it came to this: “Don't you cry so, dear girl. I have got a question to put to you—IF I COME BACK A BETTER MAN THAN I GO, WILL YOU BE MRS. ROBINSON?”