The old lady shook her head slowly.
“One might say so, if one knew the world less well than I do,” she said shortly. “But a handsome wife can do a lot one way or the other with a man.”
“What makes you think Miss Davison’s influence would be other than good?” asked Gerard.
The old lady put her head on one side and looked at him keenly.
“Perhaps it’s a kind of instinct, as one may say,” said she. “Or perhaps it’s something I’ve noticed and wondered at. She’s by way of being a bit of a flirt, isn’t she now, Mr. Buckland? She’s been nice to you, and nice to Denver, of course. And it seems to me she’s looked at that young man Jones in a way that suggested that she’d been nice to him too, though, mind you, she told us she’d never met him before he came to our house. Now do you happen to know whether that was true or not?”
The old lady had been sharp-eyed, and Gerard felt uneasy under her keen glance.
He thought evasion of the point his best course.
“Who is Jones?” he asked innocently. “Have I met him? Do I know him?”
“He was at the Priory that day you came,” said Mrs. Van Santen. “A quiet-looking young man with a black mustache.”
Now Gerard had some reason for believing that the young Van Santens knew Cecil Jones as well as Rachel did, but he could not make this suggestion to their innocent old mother. So he said—