“Where have you been all this afternoon?” he asked in an indifferent voice.
“I have been out walking.”
“What, alone, and in the rain?”
“I did not say that I was alone.”
“Whom were you with, then? It can’t have been your aunt.”
“I was with Mr. Samuel Rock: I mean that he met me.”
“What, that farmer who Mrs. Gillingwater told me admires you so much?”
“Yes. And what else did she tell you?”
“Well, I think she said she hoped that he would propose to you; but I didn’t pay much attention, it seemed too odd.”
“Well, however odd it may be, that is just what he has been doing,” answered Joan deliberately.