Avice herself had begun to think:
‘He is fearfully clumsy, but I am sure he has honest eyes; and if he has known this horrid girl all his life, he can tell me something about her. I shall ask him.’
She therefore said:
‘I was too tired to go out to-night, and—’
‘And I am keeping you,’ exclaimed John, hastily, shocked at the reflections called up by this discovery.
‘Not at all. I wish you would tell me something about Miss Bolton, as you know her so well. Is she pretty?’
John looked involuntarily at the lovely face and form confronting him, and replied, slowly:
‘Not very–but she is a perfect angel of goodness, and very nice.’
‘Ah!’ said Avice, looking earnestly at him, while a new element seemed introduced into the complication. If Miss Bolton was good and nice, it was not Sara Ford alone who had been wronged.
‘Is she clever?’ she pursued.