“You are at liberty to understand what you please. With youngsters like yourself, probably three visits would hardly be enough.”
“I have been told that these things affect all ages alike.”
Throckmorton scowled, but scowls were wasted on Jack, whose particular object was to put the major in a bad humor; in which design, however, he rarely succeeded.
In spite of the silence that had been maintained by the Barn Elms people regarding the engagement, Mrs. Sherrard, who had what is vulgarly called a nose for news, found it out by some occult means, and Throckmorton was held up in the road, as he was riding peacefully along, to answer her inquiries.
“I think you and Jacky Temple are going to be married soon, from what I hear,” was her first aggressive remark, putting her head out of the window of her ramshackly old carriage.
“Do you?” responded Throckmorton, with laughing eyes. “You must think me a deuced lucky fellow.”
Mrs. Sherrard did not speak for a moment or two, and a cold chill struck Throckmorton, while the laugh died out of his eyes.
“That’s as may be,” she replied, diplomatically; “but the idea of your marching about, thinking you are deceiving me!”
“I am young and bashful, you know, Mrs. Sherrard.”