‘What, no answer to anything?’
‘Not to silly things.’ She shakes her head. ‘Besides, it’s my turn now. Do you’—she lays her hand lightly on his arm and looks cautiously round her—‘do you think it—is all right?’
‘All right? How should I know? You refuse to answer me, and what do I know of James?’
‘Oh, oh, oh!’ Her soft voice shows irritation, and her hand trembles on his arm as if she would dearly like to shake him. ‘I begin to hate James.’
‘Ah, now we get near the answer,’ says he. ‘I feel better. Go on. What’s to be all right?’
‘You saw Ella—Mr. Wyndham’s tenant, you know—in the tree over there a little time ago. What do you think about it? I thought Mrs. Prior looked put out. But what can it matter to her who is living there? Did she want the Cottage?’
‘It seems a fair solution of the problem,’ says Crosby thoughtfully, and, after all, truthfully enough. Certainly Mrs. Prior has worked for eighteen months, not only for the Cottage, but for the owner of the Cottage and all the rest of his possessions for her daughter.
‘But she won’t be disagreeable to poor Ella, will she?’
‘Won’t she, if she gets the chance!’ thinks Crosby. ‘Must see that she doesn’t get it, though. No, no; of course’—out aloud.
‘And you think it doesn’t matter her being seen; that nothing will come of it?’