Ailleen looked at him without answering, and, with his glance averted, he went on—
"I think she's a bit gone, don't you? Fancy her talking like she did. I thought you——"
"Look here," Ailleen exclaimed quickly, "Nellie and I have been friends since we were children, and I'm not going to hear you run her down. The less you say the better."
He was taken aback at her words and manner, and stood, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other and with his eyes moving restlessly from side to side. He had made up his mind on his ride home that Ailleen had ridden away in anger, and that the first thing she would wish for would be an opportunity to abuse Nellie. It was quite inexplicable to him that she should defend instead of attack her.
Ailleen looked at him steadily for a while, watching his confusion and discomfiture, and feeling more and more angry with herself for having, earlier in the day, allowed his words to have even a passing effect upon her.
"Look here," she repeated, yielding to a sudden impulse which came upon her to talk seriously to him, "I heard quite enough from Nellie to understand. Are you going to tell your mother what you have done?"
She waited until he answered, in an indistinct mumble, that he did not know.
"Very well, then, I do," she retorted. "If you don't, I shall."
"But I say——" he began, and hesitated. He had always had a certain amount of fear for her when he was near her—a fear which changed into a covetous admiration when he was away from her; but the present attitude she adopted towards him accentuated that fear until he knew no other sentiment.