“He has not been allured by any girl in India. I have his positive assurance on that.”
Fishpingle made no reply. He was wondering whether his mistress could assign a reason for this indifference, a reason divined rather than known to himself. From the guileless expression of her face, he could draw no inference save this: that she was less guileless, where her own flesh and blood might be concerned, than she appeared. He waited patiently for further enlightenment. He perceived, moreover, that Lady Pomfret was in a rarely expansive mood.
“If we could pick and choose for him!”
“Ah!”
“Money is sadly needed, Ben.”
Each sighed, thinking of necessary things left undone—sterile acres that cried aloud for fertilisers; farm-buildings falling into disrepair; grumbling tenants; the long, dreary catalogue of “wants” upon an impoverished estate.
“You have great influence with the Squire, Ben.”
She spoke with significance. Fishpingle smiled. The dear lady had sought him with a definite object in view, which she would reveal after her own fashion. In this case, it was revealed sooner than she had intended, for she “gave herself away” by allowing her eyes to linger upon the finest picture in the dining-room, a magnificent Sir Joshua, a full-length portrait of a Pomfret beauty. At once Fishpingle stiffened and became impassive.
“You don’t approve?”
Her feminine quickness of apprehension on such occasions as these always disconcerted him. He realised that he, in his turn, had “given himself away.”