The girl asked her bluntly what she meant.
“You must not give her your washing—must not speak to her. I’ve not mentioned it before. I—I hoped it would not be necessary. Tom told me not to speak of it.”
“Tom told you not to speak of it? Not to speak of what?”
Gerty hesitated. Her husband, having relieved himself of his scorn, had made her see the necessity for not repeating that scene in Rickard’s tent. That did not prevent her speaking of what she herself had seen, what she surmised. But Innes must not speak of it; their position practically depended on him, now.
Innes, bewildered, asked her what in the world she was talking about?
“You must have observed—Mr. Rickard?”
The girl’s ear did not catch the short pause. “Observed Mr. Rickard?”
“The coolness between us. I scarcely speak to him. I don’t wish to speak to him.”
When had all this happened, Innes demanded of herself? Had she been asleep, throwing pity from outdated dreams?
“I won’t countenance a common affair like that.” Her eyes, sparkling with anger, suggested jealous wrath to Innes, who had her first hint of the story. She had learned never to take the face value of her sister’s verbal coin; it was only a symbol of value; it stood for something else.