“H’m?” remarked the vicar, and looked a trifle serious. He began to entertain doubts of Miss Annersley. “You wouldn’t, I suppose,” he hazarded, “suspect her of being a flirt?”
“That depends on what you mean exactly. Given the opportunity, every woman is a flirt. I wouldn’t accuse her of being unscrupulous. But all girls like attention; it is against human nature to discourage what one derives amusement from.”
“I wish human nature were different in that respect,” the vicar returned.
He was quite convinced that John Musgrave had no thought of flirting, and he did not like to believe that Miss Annersley was merely deriving amusement. She had looked, he recalled, on the previous night quite sweetly serious. But a woman might look serious and yet be inwardly amused. If Peggy Annersley was amusing herself at John Musgrave’s expense it would be the finish, the vicar realised, of his friend’s liking and respect for her sex. John Musgrave was not the type of man to make a heartbreak of it, but assuredly he would not essay a second time.
“I should like to know,” Mrs Errol said, “why you are so particularly concerned with Miss Annersley’s matrimonial affairs? Your interest is most extraordinary.”
Then it was that the vicar told her of the scene he had accidentally witnessed the previous night. She was not so greatly impressed as he had expected her to be, but a scene described is less effective than the same scene actually beheld. He found that he could not adequately depict the expression on the two faces; he could only explain baldly that John seemed very much in earnest.
“John always is,” she retorted. “That’s what makes him so dull. You don’t for one moment imagine, do you, that a pretty girl like Miss Annersley would fall in love with John?”
“I do not think that I took her feelings into consideration,” he answered. “I have a very strong suspicion that John is falling in love with her.”
“I’m not sure,” returned Mrs Errol, smiling, “that that wouldn’t be more amazing than the other thing. I can’t credit it—but I hope he is.”
“Time will show,” the vicar said. “If she is nothing better than a little baggage I hope he isn’t. He deserves a higher reward than the knowledge that he is affording Miss Annersley amusement.”