“I expect the fact is, you haven’t time,” he said; “You’re always about with June. I expect you’re useful to her with her young man, chaperoning, and one thing and another. They tell me she’s never at home now; your Uncle Jolyon he doesn’t like it, I fancy, being left so much alone as he is. They tell me she’s always hanging about for this young Bosinney; I suppose he comes here every day. Now, what do you think of him? D’you think he knows his own mind? He seems to me a poor thing. I should say the grey mare was the better horse!”
The colour deepened in Irene’s face; and James watched her suspiciously.
“Perhaps you don’t quite understand Mr. Bosinney,” she said.
“Don’t understand him!” James hummed out: “Why not?—you can see he’s one of these artistic chaps. They say he’s clever—they all think they’re clever. You know more about him than I do,” he added; and again his suspicious glance rested on her.
“He is designing a house for Soames,” she said softly, evidently trying to smooth things over.
“That brings me to what I was going to say,” continued James; “I don’t know what Soames wants with a young man like that; why doesn’t he go to a first-rate man?”
“Perhaps Mr. Bosinney is first-rate!”
James rose, and took a turn with bent head.
“That’s it’,” he said, “you young people, you all stick together; you all think you know best!”
Halting his tall, lank figure before her, he raised a finger, and levelled it at her bosom, as though bringing an indictment against her beauty: