This shaft fell quite ineffectually.
‘It does not matter who circulated the report,’ said Roger. ‘Every one knows that Miss Askam is a young lady of the very highest character.’
‘She’s perhaps got all the propriety for herself and her brother as well——’
‘It is very certain that her brother has none. And that brings me back. Ada, you will promise me not to have anything further to do with him, will you not, dear?’
‘If he speaks to me, I suppose I’m to shut my mouth and not say a word?’
‘He shall not speak to you again in any way that you cannot answer.’
‘Oh, what do I care for him? I want none of him, especially if there’s to be all this fuss made about it,’ said Ada; but she did not meet his eyes as she spoke.
‘That’s my own dearest Ada!’ exclaimed Roger, too much pleased with what he considered her promise, to notice anything else. ‘And by to-morrow night, I hope to have done with him for ever. I will speak to your father, and make it right with him. And now let us forget it all, and have some music by ourselves, shall we?’
But Ada was by no means to be so easily pacified. She declined the music entirely, and said that such a concert could not in the least make up for the one she had lost. After some utterly abortive attempts to keep up a cheerful conversation, all of which she cut short with snaps, or yawns, Roger at last relieved her of his company, and went on his way, with the dreary, blank sense that he and she were thoroughly divided in their opinion upon the occurrences of the evening.
But she was so young, so innocent, he said to himself. What could she possibly know of the real character of a man like Otho Askam, or of the sinister and compromising nature of any attentions from him? Patience, patience! he preached to himself, and it would all come right. When she was married to him, and he could speak plainly to her, soul to soul, there would be no more of these misunderstandings, these clouds and disputes. She would be innocent still, but not ignorant any more.