"Then pray don't repeat it to me, my love"—another yawn and an irritable one. "Gossip as you know is abhorrent to me."
"And to me—but one needs to be forearmed with the truth if one is to rebut it conclusively. Only upon such grounds should I think of mentioning this to you."
She made a dash.
"James, have you by chance ever heard peculiar rumours about young Darcy
Faircloth's parentage?"
"In mercy, Jane—what a question!—and from you! I am inexpressibly shocked."
"So was I, when—I won't mention names—when such rumours were hinted to me. I assured the person with whom I was talking that I had never heard a word on the subject. But she said, 'One can't help having eyes.'"
"Or, some of you, noses for carrion."
Here he gave her the advantage. She was not slow to make play with it.
"Now it is my turn to be shocked," she said—"and not, I think, James, without good cause."
"Yes, I apologize," the excellent man answered immediately. "I apologize; but to have so foul a suggestion of parochial scandal let loose on me suddenly, flung in my teeth, as I may say—and by you! I was taken off my guard and expressed myself coarsely. Yes, Jane, I apologize."