“I wouldn’t bother with him, if I were you,” said Jack when she showed him the card. “We have no use for your Reverend Osney Possnett. But please yourself.”
“I don’t want to be rude,” said Priscilla.
“No, but he does,” said Jack.
“I don’t mind his rudeness,” she cried. “Perhaps—who can tell?—he may have something important to communicate to me—something material——”
“They scorn anything bordering on the material,” remarked Jack, “except when they get hold of a fraudulent prospectus with a promise of eighty per cent, dividends. But see him if you have any feeling in the matter.”
“I think I should see him, Jack.”
“Then see him. I’m sure he won’t mind if I clear off.”
So Jack went out of the room by the one door and the Reverend Osney Possnett was admitted by the other. The room was the large drawing-room with the cabinets of Wedgwood; and the sofa on which Priscilla sat was of the design of that in which Madame de Pompadour was painted by Boucher. It is, however, scarcely conceivable that the Reverend Osney Possnett became aware of any sinister suggestiveness in this coincidence.
He shook hands with her, not warmly, not even socially, but strictly officially.
“Priscilla,” he said—he had known her from her childhood—“Priscilla, I have seen your father. He has told me all. I felt it to be my duty to come to you—to take you away from here.”