Anna's voice and eyes frightened Letty. She shifted from one foot to the other and looked down sullenly. "What's the good of being angry?" she said, addressing the carpet; "it's only Mr. Jessup over again. Leechy wasn't angry with Mr. Jessup. She was frightfully pleased. She says it's the greatest compliment a person can pay anybody, going on about them like Herr Klutz does, and talking rot."
Anna stared at her, bewildered. "Mr. Jessup?" she repeated. "And do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows of this—this disgusting nonsense?" She held the mangled heart at arm's length, crushing it in her hand.
"I say, you'll spoil it. He worked at it for days. There weren't any paints red enough for the wound, and he had to go to Stralsund on purpose. He thought no end of it." And Letty, scared though she was, could not resist giggling a little.
"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows about this?" insisted Anna.
"Rather not. It's a secret. He made me promise faithfully never to tell a soul. Of course it doesn't matter talking to you, because you're one of the persons concerned. You can't be married, you know, without knowing about it, so I'm not breaking my promise talking to you——"
"Married? What unutterable rubbish have you got into your head?"
"That's what I said—or something like it. I said it was jolly rot. He said, 'What's rot?' I said 'That.'"
"But what?" asked Anna angrily. She longed to shake her.
"Why, that about marrying you. I told him it was rot, and I was sure you wouldn't, but as he didn't know what rot was, it wasn't much good. He hunted it out in the dictionary, and still he didn't know."
Anna stood looking at her with indignant eyes. "You don't know what you have done," she said, "evidently you don't. It is a dreadful thing that the moment Miss Leech leaves you you should begin to talk of such things—such horrid things—with a stranger. A little girl of your age——"