‘And so are we,’ says Fitzgerald, putting a hand lightly over her shoulder and drawing up a bunch of the pretty fruit between his fingers.
‘Oh, I think we ought not to eat them—I do indeed,’ says Susan, in a small agony. There can be no doubt now about the fact that the thief, repentant and struck to the very soul by her eloquent pleadings, had sought to redeem himself in her eyes by sending the stolen cherries to her. Whether with a view of giving her the pleasure of eating them, or with the higher desire of proving to her that he hadn’t devoured them, must, she feels and hopes (because to meet him again would be very unpleasant to her), for ever remain unknown.
‘Poor fellow!’ thinks she, regarding the cherries with mixed emotions that are not altogether devoid of admiration for her own hitherto unimagined powers of persuasion; ‘he was certainly and sincerely penitent. One could see that.’ She feels quite an uplifting of her soul. Perhaps, who knows? she has been born as a worthy successor to Mrs. Fry, or some of those good people! But then, after all, it is, undoubtedly, to Mr. Crosby he should have made restitution, not to her. It is, however, difficult to restore Irish cherries—a rather perishable commodity—to an owner who happens to be at the moment in the middle of Africa, or America, or China, for all she knows.
‘Not eat them!’ says Betty indignantly. ‘Why, what else are you going to do with them—make them into jam?’
‘They are not mine—I’m sure they are not mine,’ says Susan. ‘Who, for instance, could have sent them?’
Here Jacky makes a movement.
‘Jacky, you know nothing!’ cries Susan, turning indignant, warning eyes upon him; whereupon Jacky, remembering his promise, subsides once again into dismal silence.
‘Jacky, I smell a conspiracy,’ says Dominick, who has caught the look between them; ‘and you are the head-centre. Speak, boy, whilst yet there is time!’
‘I’ve nothing to say,’ says Jacky sulkily; he is naturally of a somewhat morose disposition, and now feels positively ill at not being able to divulge the delightful story of which these glowing cherries are the result.
‘Susan, I do believe you have at last got an admirer,’ says Carew, in the complimentary tone of the orthodox brother, who never can understand why on earth any fellow can admire his sister. ‘Come! out with it; he seems a sensible fellow, any way. Flowers are awful rot, but there’s something in cherries.’