“Together—together?” Francie repeated with charming wan but not at all tender eyes on him.
“Don’t you remember what I said to you—just as straight as my course always is—before we went up there, before our lovely drive? I stated to you that I felt—that I always feel—my great hearty hungry public behind me.”
“Oh yes, I understood—it was all for you to work it up. I told them so. I never denied it,” Francie brought forth.
“You told them so?”
“When they were all crying and going on. I told them I knew it—I told them I gave you the tip as you call it.”
She felt Mr. Flack fix her all alarmingly as she spoke these words; then he was still nearer to her—he had taken her hand. “Ah you’re too sweet!” She disengaged her hand and in the effort she sprang up; but he, rising too, seemed to press always nearer—she had a sense (it was disagreeable) that he was demonstrative—so that she retreated a little before him. “They were all there roaring and raging, trying to make you believe you had outraged them?”
“All but young Mr. Probert. Certainly they don’t like it,” she said at her distance.
“The cowards!” George Flack after a moment remarked. “And where was young Mr. Probert?” he then demanded.
“He was away—I’ve told you—in America.”
“Ah yes, your father told me. But now he’s back doesn’t he like it either?”