“If I catch the little bastard’s nose in my affairs, I’ll twist it off!” swore Bart. “He carry tales to my father! Let me see him snooping round us, that’s all! You needn’t worry, my sweet! He’s a damned sight too scared of me to pry into my business.”
“He’d do you a mischief if he could,” she said in a troubled tone.
“Rot, why should he?”
She lacked the words to be able to explain her own vague intuition to him, and sat tongue-tied, twisting the corner of a little muslin apron she wore. He would not, have understood her had she had the entire English vocabulary at her command, for he had a very simple mind, and such twisted thoughts as flourished in Jimmy’s crafty brain he would neither have believed in nor comprehended. He sat looking at Loveday’s downcast face with a puzzled frown, and presently asked: “You haven’t said anything to him, have you?”
She lied at once. She was ashamed to confess to him that her pride in her conquest had made her boast to Jimmy that she was soon to be married to a Penhallow. Besides, it was certain that he would be roused to quick wrath, and she was afraid of his anger, which, although it might be of short duration, quite possessed him while it lasted, and made him do things which afterwards he was sorry for. She said: “Oh, no! But he’s sly, Jimmy is, and there’s little goes on in this house he doesn’t know about. We did ought to be careful, Bart, love.”
“I want you,” he said. “I don’t care a damn for Jimmy, or anyone else. I’m going to have you.”
“Get Trellick, and there’s no one can stop us marrying,” she said. “I won’t have you, love, else.”
Her caressing tone robbed her words of offence. She was passionately in love with him, but she had a native caution, born of her circumstances which he lacked. She had the more subtle mind, too, and he was aware of it, sometimes a little puzzled by it but on the whole respectful of it. He said: “Well, I’ll try to get the Guv’nor to see reason. But if he won’t...”
“We’ll think of something else,” she said quickly.
His hold round her waist tightened; he forced her head up with his free hand, and stared down into her face, a little smouldering light glowing at the back of his eyes. “It won’t make any difference! Or will it? Come on, out with it, my girl! Would you turn me down, if the old man chucked me out? I believe you would!”