He felt oddly responsible for the girl; wished that he had some one to consult about her.... His aunts? Dears, of course, but ... Alicia, possibly.... Certainly not Jean.... Nothing against them ... dearest women alive ... but hardly capable of understanding Alwynne, were they? Without at all realising it he had already arrived at the conviction that no one understood Alwynne but himself.
He caught her name as he re-entered the room.
"Ever so much better! A different creature! Don't you think so, Roger?"
"Think what?"
"That Alwynne's a new girl? It's the air. Nothing like Dene air. But, of course, you didn't see her when she first came. A poor white thing! She'd worked herself to a shadow. How Elsbeth allowed it——"
Jean caught her up.
"Overwork! Fiddlesticks! It wasn't that. I'm convinced in my own mind that there's something behind it. A girl doesn't go to pieces like that from a little extra work. Look at your Compton women at the end of a term. Bursting with energy still, I will say that for them. No—I'm inclined to agree with Parker. I told you what she said to me? 'She must have been crossed in love, poor young lady, the way she fiddle-faddles with her food!'"
Alicia laughed.
"When you and Parker get together there's not a reputation safe in the three Denes. If there had been anything of the kind, Elsbeth would have given me a hint."
"I should have thought Elsbeth would be the last person——" Jean broke off significantly.