The little prim lady could be heard to sigh. She seemed genuinely concerned about this matter.
“But haven’t you heard,” said she, with a prim little affectation of sprightliness, “‘that faint heart never won fair lady?’ How is it that you are so sure that Miss Claris means to treat you badly?”
“How am I sure?” bellowed Jem, flaming up into wrath. “Why, I’m sure of it because she does it—because she never meets me but what she turns her head away as if I was beneath my lady’s notice. That’s why I am sure, an’ that’s why,” went on Jem, casting a glance at the kitchen window, and raising his voice still higher, in the hope of being heard by Nell, “that’s why I say I’ll be even with her.”
“Dear, dear!” bleated Miss Bostal, as she drew her shawl more closely about her. “I shouldn’t have expected a brave fellow like you to threaten a lady.”
Jem only grunted.
“I should have expected you to have more patience. Come, now, shall I speak to her for you? I don’t know, mind, that I can do any good; but if any word of mine can help the path of true love run smooth, why, I’ll say it with pleasure.”
But Jem only replied by a jeering laugh.
“I mean it,” chirped the lady. “I’ll speak to her myself. And now will you come into the kitchen and hear me speak to her? Perhaps that will satisfy you.”
After a few minutes’ hesitation Jem slouched into the passage; and Miss Bostal was about to close the door, when the detective, who had taken care to hear every word of this colloquy, appeared suddenly before her, and put his hand upon the door.
“Beg pardon, ma’am, but I should like a few words with you, if you’ll be so good as to see me for a few minutes privately. My name’s Hemming, ma’am; and I dare say it’s got to your ears that I’m here about this robbery business at the Blue Lion.”