“Thomas! you are just like Janet!” impulsively spoke Cecil. “She does not like the Verralls.”
“Neither do I. I do not like him. I do not like Charlotte Pain——”
“Janet again!” struck in Cecil. “She and you must be constituted precisely alike, for you are sure to take up the same likes and dislikes. She would not willingly let me go to-day; only she could not refuse without downright rudeness.”
“I like Mrs. Verrall the best of them, I was going to say,” he continued. “Do not become too intimate with them, Cecil.”
“But you know nothing against Mr. Verrall?”
“Nothing whatever. Except that I cannot make him out.”
“How do you mean—‘make him out?’”
“Well, Cecil, it may be difficult to define my meaning. Verrall is so impassive; so utterly silent with regard to himself. Who is he? Where did he come from? Did he drop from the moon? Where has he previously lived? What are his family? Where does his property lie?—in the funds, or in land, or in securities, or what? Most men, even though they do come as strangers into a neighbourhood, supply indications of some of these things, either accidentally or purposely.”
“They have lived in London,” said Cecil.
“London is a wide term,” answered Thomas Godolphin.