"If Mr. Vibart has taken one of your sticks, Uncle Matthew, he must have done so by mistake."
"The young scoundrel! The young blackguard!" He became incoherent with rage.
"But, Uncle Matthew, if he has taken one of your sticks he'll bring it back."
"Hers! Hers!" the old gentleman was gasping.
"Oh, dear Uncle Matthew, I'm so dreadfully sorry."
"My poor little wife's! He's taken my poor little wife's silver-handled cane. And she was so fond of it. Her favourite. The ruffian! The—the—tramp! He might have taken any other but that. Oh dear! Oh damn! Why do you bring these people here, you abominable girl?"
That afternoon Jasmine arrived in Harley Street, and had to explain that Uncle Matthew would not have her to stay with him any longer. The Hector Grants welcomed her with something like friendliness, but the next day, when Vibart brought back the missing stick, it was Pamela who claimed the privilege of returning it to Uncle Matthew, and a few days later it was thought advisable for Jasmine to pay her promised visit to Aunt Ellen and Uncle Arnold at Silchester.
Chapter Seven
JASMINE had protested against the visit to Silchester; and this protest was in the opinion of the Hector Grants conclusive evidence of a thwarted intention to corrupt poor old Uncle Matthew. Her resentment of the humiliating unconcern for her own dignity that was being displayed in thus sending her round from one group of relatives to another was brushed aside as no more than the expression of a natural chagrin at finding that her schemes had miscarried. They did not, of course, accuse her in so many words of being crafty; but Jasmine understood well enough at what they were hinting, and the consciousness that she had allowed Selina to discuss her prospects in the old gentleman's will, coupled with the memory of her own dreams of what she should do if he did leave his money to her, gave Jasmine a sufficiently acute sense of guilt to cut short any further opposition to the Silchester visit.
"I simply cannot understand your prejudice against the Deanery," Aunt May avowed. "There must be something else which you are trying to conceal." One of Aunt May's foibles was to regard as potential jackdaws everybody not situated so advantageously as herself. "It can't merely be that you don't want to greet your Aunt Ellen. There must be some other reason. I'm sorry your friend Mr. Vibart should have made such an unfortunate impression on poor old Uncle Matthew. But that is not our fault, is it?"