There was a pause; then Jasper said in an unsteady voice:
‘I am not given to lying, Dora, and I feel confoundedly uncomfortable about what I said to you early this evening. I didn’t lie in the ordinary sense; it’s true enough that I have never told anyone that my engagement was at an end. But I have acted as if it were, and it’s better I should tell you.’
His sister gazed at him with indignation.
‘You have acted as if you were free?’
‘Yes. I have proposed to Miss Rupert. How Mrs Lane and that lot have come to know anything about this I don’t understand. I am not aware of any connecting link between them and the Ruperts, or the Barlows either. Perhaps there are none; most likely the rumour has no foundation in their knowledge. Still, it is better that I should have told you. Miss Rupert has never heard that I was engaged, nor have her friends the Barlows—at least I don’t see how they could have done. She may have told Mrs Barlow of my proposal—probably would; and this may somehow have got round to those other people. But Maud didn’t make any mention of Miss Rupert, did she?’
Dora replied with a cold negative.
‘Well, there’s the state of things. It isn’t pleasant, but that’s what I have done.’
‘Do you mean that Miss Rupert has accepted you?’
‘No. I wrote to her. She answered that she was going to Germany for a few weeks, and that I should have her reply whilst she was away. I am waiting.’
‘But what name is to be given to behaviour such as this?’