He obeyed, and bit his lip angrily.
“What of it?” he demanded. “A quotation from Kipling’s Recessional—a mere commonplace.... Yes; I wrote it.”
Then his anger suddenly left him. His mind had leaped to the solution of the matter, and the solution appeared to Wesley Elliot as eminently satisfying; it was even amusing. What a transparent, womanly little creature she was, to be sure! He had not been altogether certain of himself as he walked out to the old Bolton place that morning. But oddly enough, this girlish jealousy of hers, this pretty spite—he found it piquantly charming.
“I wrote it,” he repeated, his indulgent understanding of her mood lurking in smiling lips and eyes, “on the occasion of a particularly grubby Sunday School picnic: I assure you I shall not soon forget the spiders which came to an untimely end in my lemonade, nor the inquisitive ants which explored my sandwiches.”
She surveyed him unsmilingly.
“But you did not mean that,” she said. “You were thinking of something—quite different.”
He frowned thoughtfully. Decidedly, this matter should be settled between them at once and for ever. A clergyman, he reflected, must always be on friendly—even confidential terms with a wide variety of women. His brief experience had already taught him this much. And a jealous or unduly suspicious wife might prove a serious handicap to future success.
“Won’t you sit down,” he urged. “I—You must allow me to explain. We—er—must talk this over.”
She obeyed him mechanically. All at once she was excessively frightened at what she had attempted. She knew nothing of the ways of men; but she felt suddenly sure that he would resent her interference as an unwarrantable impertinence.
“I thought—if you were going there today—you might take it—to her,” she hesitated. “Or, I could send it. It is a small matter, of course.”