“You’re a very good friend, Mr Hibbert, but Mr Everitt is sufficiently a man of the world to have thought of consequences beforehand. Now, will you kindly go and tell Mrs Marchmont from me that she will find ices in the drawing-room.”
There was no help for it, Jack had to go. And then Bell turned to the girl by her side.
“You didn’t mind, did you, Kitty?” she demanded, with a little anxiety. “You know, I think you’re disposed to be hard upon poor Mr Everitt, and I wanted you to hear what his friends have to say for him. That’s a very nice boy.” Then, as Kitty did not speak, she looked in her face: “Don’t you think so?”
“I dare say,” said the other girl, impatiently. “Oh yes, I dare say he’s a very good friend; but oh, Bell, don’t you see?”
“What?”
“How dreadful it all is! The idea of this man knowing, and another man knowing, and all London knowing what he did! I am ashamed when I see people only looking at me. And just suppose if some one goes and alludes to it to father!”
“Now, Kitty! All London! Why, this Mr Hibbert works in the same studio!”
“He shouldn’t have told him, all the same.”
“I do think you’re dreadfully hard. Didn’t it touch you to hear of what he’d done for that poor artist?”
“Not when I thought of what he’d done to me. What have I to do with his kindness? He may be the kindest man in the world.”