‘Very well,’ she replied, indifferently. ‘I shall probably go and see Ellen off to the station, and after that I shall remain indoors.’
‘Ellen!’ he exclaimed, for he had forgotten her. He went into the kitchen, and gave her the letter which she carried to Sara Ford. He could not meet the woman’s eyes; he could not look either easy, or natural, or self-possessed, as he desired her to give the letter, without adding word or message. He perceived, without looking at her, that she held herself stiffly, and received the envelope and his commission in perfect silence. Then he went into the parlour again, and had taken his hat off the peg, when Avice called out in a voice from which all the liquid tenderness of their first acquaintance had vanished:
‘Jerome, is it permitted me to write to my friend Miss Ford?’
He turned back upon her with scintillating eyes, and teeth set.
‘Avice, take care how you go too far,’ he said.
But there was not a drop of craven blood in her veins. There was dauntless defiance in her open glance, as she said:
‘Surely you never wish me to speak of her as your friend again! And I merely ask to hear what you have to say, because I intend to write whatever your answer may be. I wished to take precautions–that’s all. I intend, metaphorically, to cast myself at her feet, and beg her not to visit the sins of my brother too hardly upon me.’
‘Since you have made up your mind what to do, it was unnecessary to ask me,’ he answered, setting his teeth.
‘I take that as a most gracious permission. I am glad that you see and speak more reasonably,’ she retorted, mocking his own words.
He did not speak, but left the house, and during his short journey to the station he felt–it was a degrading feeling, no doubt–but he, Jerome Wellfield, who, six months ago, had been as proud, as fastidious, and as exclusive a young man as any one of them that trod this earth, crouched morally at that moment, like a whipped hound. He was conscious of a cowardly longing to make Avice and Nita known to one another as speedily as possible. He had an intuitive conviction that Nita’s charm would soon win Avice’s heart, and then his mistress’s purity and sweetness would stand between him and his sister’s tongue. It was a delightful, an elevating, a soul-inspiring position, and he enjoyed it to the full.