Joey had turned and strolled at his side towards a garden seat. They sat down, she with her habitual inelegance, her legs wide apart, her thick garden boots firmly planted on the gravel.
"I like her," she burst out with energy. "I like her to rights. She's got no nonsense about her; you should have seen her with the kiddies yesterday! I should hate to lose her! But what harm can poor old Percy do her? Of course he's in love with her, but so he is with every pretty woman he sees. And it is such a good thing"—she broke off here, her thick mouth quivering. The doctor in his compassion understood as well as if she had finished the sentence. The thought in her mind was—"it is such a good thing for him to be interested in a woman of our own class, where no harm can come of it, rather than in the daughter of the publican in Buxton, in whose bar he has spent half the day for the past month."
"Mrs. Gaunt is quite an invalid, Joey," Dymock told her gently. "It disturbs her to be introduced to strangers. Her own husband is behaving like a trump, and you must see quite well that I'm not going to let your husband step in and spoil things. She has got to be kept perfectly quiet, and if you can do that you may be with her. If not—if you can't guarantee to keep off Ferris—why the motor drives must stop. Gaunt is getting a car for her, but there will be some delay."
Joey sat still, saying nothing, gazing straight before her for a while, and Dymock waited with perfect patience.
"I thought," she began slowly, "when Gaunt got married, what a difference it might make to me supposing she was somebody I could cotton to. If he was more approachable, not such a disagreeable chap, Percy would have somewhere to go—somebody to speak to about his cave and his mining scheme. You know all Percy wants is something to do, something to fill up his mind. Old Percy's all right, isn't he, doctor? Only he gets bored. He's awfully struck with Mrs. Gaunt; and, you see, like everybody else, I have tried to grind my own axe instead of thinking only about her."
"Joey, you're a trump," replied the doctor heartily. "I see your point of view, and there's nothing against it, except that you must wait a few days—say a few weeks—before starting in. You may tell Percy that he must lie low or he will spoil his own chance with Gaunt. If that gentleman heard that he had been trying to make the running with madame, he would send the lead-mine to blazes. Can you get that into Ferris's head?"
"Yes," she replied more hopefully, "I think I could. He must hold off a bit for the present. I can say you said so—shove it all on you, can't I, doctor?"
"Most certainly. Doctor's orders. Ferris is, of course, quite free to say that he can't spare his car for Mrs. Gaunt. But if he lends it, he must for the present stand out. I hope you can manage this, young woman, because I think it much better for Mrs. Gaunt to have your society than to go out quite alone. If you can arrange as I tell you, I will do my little best to say a word to Gaunt about the Branterdale mine. His support would be the making of the scheme; for whatever his failings as a society man, nobody is more universally trusted and respected than he."
"I know. I am pretty sure I can keep Percy off, at least for a bit," Joey assured him. "As soon as she is better, Mrs. Gaunt will like to have him about, he is such a taking chap, isn't he?"
"Handsome as paint," replied the doctor, smiling somewhat awry under his moustache. He could not tell her that the style which was fatal to the Buxton barmaid inspired in Virginia only an impatient disgust. "By the bye, I needn't give you the hint to tell Mrs. Gaunt nothing of my visit? She must not know that I have said a word? To put it shortly, you mustn't apologise; don't say a word about Ferris, good or bad. Simply arrange that he doesn't appear again."