‘It was not your father in particular. It was the Wellfield family. She had a dislike to—no, not a dislike. Aunt Margaret never has such strong feelings as likes and dislikes. She said your family were proud and unscrupulous, that they had never worked for others, or cared for any but themselves; that they were—but I have no business to say such things,’ said Nita, who had by this time become so nervous and so confused as not really to know what she was saying, and who rambled on, fascinated by the calm, pale face and intent dark eyes of her companion. She spoke of the old Wellfields as if they had been a dream, and did not realise that this man beside her was actually one of the race.
‘Go on, please,’ he said; and Nita continued, as if it had been a lesson she was repeating by heart.
‘That they were selfish and luxurious——’
‘The last fault will not be laid to their charge in this generation, at least,’ observed Jerome. ‘Well, what else?’
‘I am only saying all this because you make me!’ said Nita, with almost passionate protest in her voice, ‘not because I wish to. She says—but I will tell you no more. I will not be so odious. If you really desire to hear such things, ask Aunt Margaret. She will tell you, and will not spare anything on account of your name and your race.’
‘Thank you. I shall have a little conversation with her some day. I can quite imagine that she thought it was an unmitigated benefit when the Abbey passed from the hands of our dissolute race into the honest and untainted ones of your father.’
‘I knew you would never forgive me, and yet you would make me go on,’ said Nita, in a tone of despairing resignation. ‘I can’t help it. I wash my hands of it.’
‘You at least may “wash your hands in innocency,”’ he replied. ‘Since my old home is never to be mine, I would as soon you had it as anyone; and since you wish for it more than for anything in the world——’
‘There is one thing now which I feel that I wish for more,’ said Nita, in a vibrating voice.
‘Is there? What is that?’