There could be but one outcome. Mr. Wycherly's sense of honour would not allow him to conceal from Jane-Anne an opportunity he feared she would be only too ready to grasp. And that same sense precluded his laying the matter before her himself. He knew that he was so biassed that he must place the whole scheme in a most unattractive light; and his very faculty for seeing all round a question prevented his expressing the actively hostile views he most certainly held. Therefore, he left Curly to lay the question before her.
This Curly did, and actuated, perhaps, by a somewhat similar spirit to Mr. Wycherly's, he hid from the girl nothing of the disagreeables she was likely to encounter. He painted the life of little more than a super with a travelling company as the reverse of pleasant. He spared her no sordid detail, he exaggerated rather than minimised all she would have to endure.
With downcast eyes and lips that trembled a little, she heard him in silence to the end. Then she turned her large gaze upon him, and asked:
"But shall I learn things?"
"It is the only way to learn things."
"Then, if the master will let me, I will come."
"He doesn't like it. He hates the idea. It will make him very unhappy. He will miss you dreadfully."
"Montagu will be at New College then. He will be always in and out. I wouldn't go if the master would be all alone. But with Montagu there—it makes all the difference——"
"I don't know even now that he will consent."
"I think," said Jane-Anne, "that he will allow me to go, because he is so just."