"Yes," he answered. It was not necessary to explain who "she" was.
"Well," said Janey, "she would na do that if she did na think more o' yo' nor if yo' were a common chap. She's pretty grand i' her ways. What did yo' talk about?"
"It would be hard to tell now," he replied. "We talked of several things."
"Aye, but what I wanted to know wur whether she talked to thee loike she'd talk to a gentlemon,—whether she made free wi' thee or not."
"I have never seen her talk to a gentleman," he said.
"How does she talk to Haworth?"
"I have never seen her talk to him either. We have never been there at the same time."
This was true. It had somehow chanced that they had never met at the house. Perhaps Rachel Ffrench knew why. She had found Broxton dull enough to give her an interest in any novelty of emotion or experience. She disliked the ugly town, with its population of hard-worked and unpicturesque people. She hated the quiet, well regulated, well-bred county families with candor and vivacity. She had no hesitation in announcing her distaste and weariness.
"I detest them all," she once said calmly to Murdoch. "I detest them."
She made the best of the opportunities for enlivenment which lay within her grasp. She was not averse to Haworth's presenting himself again and again, sitting in restless misery in the room with her, watching her every movement, drinking in her voice, struggling to hold himself in check, and failing and growing sullen and silent, and going away, carrying his wretchedness with him. She never encouraged him to advance by any word or look, but he always returned again, to go through the same self-torture and humiliation, and she always knew he would. She even derived some unexciting entertainment from her father's plans for the future. He had already new methods and processes to discuss. He had a fancy for establishing a bank in the town, and argued the advisability of the scheme with much fervor and brilliancy. Without a bank in which the "hands" could deposit their earnings, and which should make the town a sort of center, and add importance to its business ventures, Broxton was nothing.