No you're not, thought Jones, who, with an agility which for him was phenomenal, hurried to the door and backed against it.
Lennox motioned him aside.
Jones, without budging, lied. "They're out of town." It was very imbecile. He knew it was, knew, too, that Lennox knew it, and, for the imbecile lie, he substituted another. "I mean they are dining out."
"What the devil are you driving at?" Lennox asked, and not very civilly either.
"A windmill, I suppose. You look like one. I——"
Jones broke off. The expression on Lennox' face arrested him. The attempt at interference, the stupid evasions, the conviction which these things produced, that there was something behind them, something secreted, something about Margaret that Jones knew and which he was concealing, made him livid.
"Out with it."
Jones looked at him, looked away, adjusted his neckcloth, vacated the door, crossed the room and sat down. He did not know to what saint to vow himself. But realising that it was all very useless, that everything is, except such solicitude as one pilgrim may show to another, and that, anyway, Lennox would soon hear it, he gave it to him.
"She is engaged to Paliser."
Lennox, who was approaching, stopped short. "Miss Austen is?"