“Oh, Johnny, I wish I knew!” she said, clasping her hands. “I wish I could satisfy myself which way right lies. If I were to speak, it might be put down to a wrong motive. I try to see whether that thought is not a selfish one, whether I ought to let it deter me. But then—that’s not the worst.”
“That sounds like a riddle, Anna.”
“I wish I had some good, judicious person who would hear all and judge for me,” she said, rather dreamily. “If you were older, Johnny, I think I would tell you.”
“I am as old as you are, at any rate.”
“That’s just it. We are neither of us old enough nor experienced enough to trust to our own judgment.”
“There’s your mother, Anna.”
“I know.”
“What you mean is, that Sir John and Lady Whitney ought to have their eyes opened to what’s going on, that they may put an end to Miss Chalk’s intimacy here, if they deem the danger warrants it?”
“That’s near enough, Johnny. And I don’t see my way sufficiently clearly to do it.”
“Put the case to Helen.”