“Well, perhaps not,” he allowed. “It is a vicarious triumph. But the success is unquestionable. I experienced in watching John a return of my own youth.”
“I wish,” Belle remarked with some irrelevance, “that she was a little older.”
“Why?” asked the vicar, divining her reason even while putting the question. The wish found an echo in his own thoughts, and had its origin in the same grave doubt.
“I don’t think a girl like Peggy will fall in love with John,” she said.
“The mere fact that John danced with her does not prove that he is in any immediate danger of falling in love with her,” he returned. “I don’t suppose such an idea ever entered his head.”
Belle laughed.
“I don’t suppose it did,” she agreed. “But I think she has the power to inspire the emotion in him. It would be regrettable if she succeeded in doing that without intending it.”
“It would,” he allowed, and was silent for a space, recognising the inability of John’s friends to safeguard him against the danger if Miss Peggy Annersley chose to work in opposition to them. “She seems,” he suggested hopefully, “to be quite kind and sincere.”
“She is an incorrigible little flirt,” Belle replied, smiling at his rather obvious attempt to reassure her. “I know her a good deal better than you do.”
“All good women, I understand,” he returned, recalling his wife’s remarks on the same subject, “flirt, given the opportunity. Since you mention the propensity in connection with her, I have reason to believe she flirts with Robert. He has a poor opinion of her courage and a great idea of her amiability.”