This detail evidently had a powerful effect. Polly ate and drank and ruminated, one eye on the speaker.
"I got to know of that," went on the wily Gammon. "And I told Greenacre. And Greenacre made me tell it to Lord P. himself. And that's how I came to be with Lord P. on New Year's Eve! Now you've got it all."
"Why didn't you tell me?" asked Polly with ferocity.
"Ah, why? I was ashamed to, my dear. I couldn't own up that I'd made a fool of myself and you too."
"How did you know that he'd been at my aunt's?"
"She sent for me, Polly; sent for me and told me, because I was an old friend. And I was so riled at the fellow coming and going in that way that I spoke to Greenacre about it. And then Greenacre told me how things were. I felt a fool, I can tell you. But the fact is, I never saw two men so like in the face as Clover and Lord P."
"When you was there—at my aunt's—did you talk about me?" asked the girl with a peculiar awkwardness.
"Not a word, I swear! We were too much taken up with the other business."
For a minute or two neither spoke.
"And you mean to say," burst at length from Polly, "that my uncle's still alive and going about?"