“She’d oblige me a great deal more by reassuring me. I know perfectly of your knowing I’ve told her that Miss Mavis is greatly talked about.”
“Yes, but what on earth does it matter?”
“It matters as a sign.”
“A sign of what?”
“That she’s in a false position.”
Jasper puffed his cigar with his eyes on the horizon, and I had, a little unexpectedly, the sense of producing a certain effect on him. “I don’t know whether it’s your business, what you’re attempting to discuss but it really strikes me it’s none of mine. What have I to do with the tattle with which a pack of old women console themselves for not being sea-sick?”
“Do you call it tattle that Miss Mavis is in love with you?”
“Drivelling.”
“Then,” I retorted, “you’re very ungrateful. The tattle of a pack of old women has this importance, that she suspects, or she knows, it exists, and that decent girls are for the most part very sensitive to that sort of thing. To be prepared not to heed it in this case she must have a reason, and the reason must be the one I’ve taken the liberty to call your attention to.”
“In love with me in six days, just like that?”—and he still looked away through narrowed eyelids.