And once laden with her booty, a share of which she bestowed on her sister, Betty hurried onward, Eira accompanying her, leaving Frances to dispose of Mr Littlewood as she thought well.
He did not intend to be disposed of just at once. As Frances walked on slowly towards home in her sisters’ rear, he suited his step to hers with an evident intention of beguiling the way with a little conversation.
“I’m afraid,” he began, with a touch of hesitation which scarcely seemed consistent with his ordinary tone and bearing, “I am afraid that your—your sister—I do not know if she is the youngest?—has not quite forgiven me for my stupid speech the other day.”
Frances tried to answer lightly, but in her heart she felt annoyed with Betty.
“I hope she is not so silly,” she replied. “More probably she is still vexed with herself for having taken offence at—at really nothing.”
“Nothing in intention, most assuredly,” he replied, with a touch of relief in his tone. “But still, she was annoyed. And—if I am not making bad worse—would you mind giving me some idea, Miss Morion, what it was that she referred to? In case, you see, of my people coming down here, as seems very probable, it would be just as well—it might avoid friction if I understood just a little how the land lies.” Frances hesitated.
“It is such an old story,” she said, “and rather an involved one, and really not of any interest except to ourselves!”
“I don’t know that,” he replied quickly. “To tell you the truth—you mustn’t be vexed with me—I asked Milne about it, but he was rather muddled, I think. Possibly he scarcely felt free to explain it, so he ended up by saying he was too busy to go into it then, all of which, of course, whetted my curiosity.”
There was something naïf, almost boyish, in his manner, which Frances had not before been conscious of, and it gave her a feeling of greater sympathy with him.
“There is really no secret or mystery of any kind,” she said. “I mean nothing that I could have the least hesitation in telling you, or any one who cared to hear. Though a mystery there is, a commonplace enough one too, I suppose: a lost or hidden will! It was long ago—” but by this time they were at the stile, over which the two younger girls had already clambered, and now stood waiting on the road, evidently expecting that at this juncture their companion would take himself off.