“And if he met a woman?” she said slyly.
“There’s no danger in a woman.”
“Then why are you running away from Miss Flippance?”
“Miss Flippance!” he cried in angry astonishment. “Who says I’m running away from Miss Flippance?”
“Well, you’ve run from her to me. And if you say you weren’t running after me, you must have been running away from her.”
“Don’t you try to bamboozle me. I tell you I’ve been half round the world, and nowhere have I seen a woman carrier.”
“If you’d ha’ stayed at home you would have,” said Jinny.
“So it seems. And in America there are those Bloomerites—come over here, too, I hear, nowadays, the hussies. Want to wear the breeches.”
“Do they?” inquired Jinny with genuine interest. “I’ve often thought it would be more convenient for me jumping up and down, and there would be yards of stuff less. Some of those Chipstone ladies quite scavenge the streets with their long skirts, padded out by all those petticoats, don’t you think?”
He grew almost as auburn as his hair: such secrets of the toilette, babbled by a young girl he still thought good at heart, outraged his sense of decorum.