'I don't think you know much about the place,' he said quietly, still smiling.
She flushed, her foolish little sense of natural superiority to 'the assistant' outraged again, as it had been outraged already a hundred times since she and David Grieve had met.
'I know quite as much as anybody need know—any respectable person—' she maintained angrily. 'It's a low, disgraceful place—and they talk wicked nonsense. Everyone says so. It doesn't matter a bit where Uncle Lomax goes—he's mad—but it is a shame he should lead other people astray.'
She was much pleased with her own harangue, and stood there frowning on him, her sharp little chin in the air, one foot beating the ground.
'Well, yes, really,' said David in a reflective tone; 'one would think Miss Dora had her hands full at home, without—'
He looked up, significantly, smiling. Lucy Purcell was enraged with him—with his hypocritical sympathy as to her uncle's misdoings—his avoidance of his own crime.
'It's not uncle at all, it's you!' she cried, with more logic than appeared. 'I tell you, Mr. Grieve, father won't stand it.'
The young man drew himself up from the counter.
'No,' he said with great equanimity, 'I suppose not.'
And taking up a parcel of books from the counter he turned away. Lucy, flurried and pouting, called after him.