“Well—yes, I suppose so; she’s a sort of connection.”
Jill compressed her mouth, and stared fixedly at the fire; the situation was a little awkward.
“Being a relation of yours,” she began in a slightly strained voice, “I’m sorry that I said what I did, but—well, you yourself, called her a prig, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted, and then he tore the card in two, angrily, and threw it into the flames.
“She couldn’t, perhaps, have avoided the accident,” Jill went on, “and she meant to kind, but she doesn’t possess much tact.”
“No,” he agreed, “she doesn’t. You must allow me to apologise for her. After all there is some slight excuse for her gaucherie; she has been spoilt with a superabundance of this world’s goods—quarter of a million of money is rather inclined to blunt the finer sensibilities.”
“Quarter of a million!” gasped Jill. “Oh, dear me, I would like the chance of having my finer sensibilities blunted.”
She laughed a little, but St. John was looking so gloomy that her mirth died away almost as soon as it had risen.
“Come!” she said, jumping up. “I will get you some water to wash your hands, and then we must go to work; it will never do to waste a whole morning like this.”
He allowed her to go without hindrance, and when quite alone stood glaring at the charred embers of Miss Bolton’s card.