‘Is Fotheringham in town?’
‘No; he is gone to Paris.’
‘Then it is humbug, as I thought. I met that precious Miss Gardner in the train going to Worthbourne, and she would have me believe you were getting up a match between those two! A fine story,—not a year since he proposed to Theodora! There was she congratulating me on the satisfaction it must be to Mrs. Martindale!’
‘So she wanted to make mischief between us,’ said Violet, much hurt.
‘Mischief is meat and drink to her. But not a jot did I believe, I tell you, silly child. You are not wasting tears on that crocodile tongue! I had a mind to tell her to her face that Percy is made of different stuff; and for my own Violet blossom—’
The tears dropped bright and happy. ‘Though, dear Arthur, it was true, as far as Percy was concerned. Annette has had to refuse him.’
‘A wise girl!’ exclaimed Arthur, in indignant surprise. ‘But Percy! I could not have believed it. Why would she not have him?’
‘Chiefly from thinking it not right to accept him. I hope I did not do wrong in telling her all about it. I thought it only fair, and she did not care enough for him to make the refusal an effort.’
‘I should think not! The fickle dog. To go and take up with—No disrespect to Annette,—but after Theodora! So soon, too!’
‘I fancied it more pique than inconstancy. There is so much anger about him that I suspect there is more affection than he knows.’