Jerry grunted approval and agreement. He had got to a very delicate point in his occupation, which was that of taking out some stamps which Ted in a hurry had gummed into a wrong place in his album. All such difficult operations, settings right of other people’s puttings wrong, were sure to fall to Jerry—his thin dexterous fingers seemed to have a genius for work that baffled every one else. Charlotte went on with her writing, and for a few minutes there was silence in the room.
Suddenly she looked up again.
“Jerry,” she said, “I’m so glad you think that that girl is sure to be stupid.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jerry, whose mouth was again screwed up in absorbed anxiety. “There now,” he exclaimed, “I’ve got it off without the least scrap tearing. I’m sure Ted should be very much obliged to me. What were you saying, Charlotte? I never said I was sure—only that perhaps she would be.”
“No, no, you said more than that. If you didn’t say you were sure, you said ‘very likely.’ That’s more than ‘perhaps,’” persisted Charlotte. “Well, I hope she is, for then I may be able to like her. If not—but I really think she must be, if not stupid, at least not clever. It wouldn’t be fair for her to have everything,” she went on, reverting to the old grievance. “Nobody has, people say.”
But Jerry’s sympathy on the subject was rather exhausted.
“I wish you’d leave off thinking about her,” he said. “You’ll work yourself up to fancying all sorts of things, and making yourself dislike a person that perhaps you’ll never see. Possibly she won’t come after all.”
Charlotte sighed.
“I dare say you’re right,” she said. “It’s only that I tell you everything, you see, Jerry.”
“Hadn’t you better tell mamma about it?” he said. “She generally finds out what gives one wrong sorts of feelings. She’s put me to rights lots of times when I’d got horrid about—” and he hesitated.