"I think so: rather given to jesting—and I suppose this was the origin of your unhappy difficulty. Most quarrels spring from jests."
"True. I believe he was jesting; in fact I know it," said poor Jack Denis, wiping his brow and trying to plunge his glance into the depths of the garden, where Lucy and Hoffland were no doubt walking. "Still, Ernest, I could not have acted differently; and you would be the first person to agree with me, were I to tell you the subject of his jests."
And Denis frowned.
"What was it?" said Mowbray. "Hoffland refused point-blank to tell me, and I am perfectly ignorant of the whole affair."
Denis hesitated. Was it fair and honest to prejudice Mowbray against the boy? but on the contrary, was not the whole affair now explained as a simple jest, and would there be harm in telling what the young student had said to provoke him? The young man hesitated, and said:
"I don't know—it was a mere jest; there is no use in opening the subject again——"
"Ah, Jack!" said Mowbray, "I see that I am to live and die in ignorance, for I repeat that Hoffland would not tell me. With all the carelessness of a child, he seems to possess the reserve of a politician or a woman."
"A strange character, is he not?" said Denis.
"Yes; and yet he has won upon me powerfully."
"Your acquaintance is very short," said poor Denis, his heart sinking at the thought of having so handsome and graceful a rival as the boy.