“The purchaser never turned up. That sort of thing does happen now and then, but it came awfully rough on this poor fellow. You see, it had kept off other buyers, and then, I expect, he had traded a bit on the money; and the end of it was, he worked himself into a sort of brain fever, and was about as bad as could be, and the poor little wife was at her wits’ end, without friends or money or anything. Anybody would have helped them who’d known, but nobody took the trouble to find out except Everitt. He got a doctor and a nurse, and I know he went there every day, and he bought the picture—though, of course, that isn’t much good to him.”
“Oh, yes,” said Bell, softly. “I think it will be of good to him.” And she looked at Jack very kindly. The young fellow was too much taken up with his object to notice it.
“He’s always doing that sort of thing,” he went on. And now, if he had been a diplomatist, had even possessed the caution which Mrs Marchmont had urged upon him, he would have paused here, or strengthened his good impression by another tale of the same description. But unluckily Jack felt that more was incumbent upon him. He was for a bold assault which should carry the position by storm; and when might another opportunity present itself? “People don’t know Everitt,” he repeated; “he does out-of-the-way things. Miss Aitcheson,”—suddenly—“I’m afraid he’s offended your friends here awfully.”
Unfortunate Jack! The parasol came a little lower down.
“Has he?” coldly from Bell.
But once started, he blundered into deeper mire, in spite of warning signs.
“It did sound an odd thing to do; but, don’t you see, he’d promised to send somebody, and Mrs Marchmont wasn’t to be put off. There wasn’t a bit of real harm, you know, and Everitt did it out of sheer good-nature.”
“Well, it’s over and done with,” said Bell, with an air of finality; “and I think it would be best to say no more about it.”
“But they’ve taken it in a way which makes him feel very uncomfortable,” urged Jack.
Bell lifted her head and looked him full in the face.