“Your father tells me you are going back to town to-morrow. Is that really a necessity? It is so long since you have been here, and this has been such a very short visit. I had hoped you would have stayed over Tuesday, and that we might have had some people to meet you on that day.”
“Thank you,” said Jack shortly, “I can’t afford any longer time.” Mentally he was thinking, “Where on earth does the woman get her gowns?”
“You are working very hard, then?” she ventured to say.
“Well, it’s necessary.”
She hesitated, looked round, and said in a low voice—
“I hope you will not think what I am saying interfering,—perhaps I might not have spoken, but that your father alluded to—to it at breakfast. It is your engagement I mean.”
Jack drew himself up, and she went on hurriedly—“Pray do not think I am asking questions from curiosity. But sometimes pecuniary difficulties cause a great deal of unhappiness and—and I thought I would venture to say that if this were the case—”
“It is not, indeed.”
“Ah!” She looked at him with wistful disappointment. “Then I must not say any more. It has always seemed to me a most grievous thing, that money should unnecessarily play such an important part in these matters, and I should have been very sorry if it had been allowed to do so with you.”
Jack was touched—it was impossible not to feel that she was speaking from her heart—though he was no less stiffly determined to accept nothing at her hands. Nevertheless, she brightened at his tone, for he spoke warmly: