‘Oh, Mr. Charlie,’ said Janet, ‘don’t speak to me here. If anybody were to see you! And mother—mother is in great trouble already. Oh, don’t speak to me here!’
‘Do you mean you will speak to me in some other place? I’m well content if ye’ll do that—some place where we will be more private, by ourselves. Ye may be sure that’s what I would like best.’
‘I did not mean that,’ said Janet in great distress. ‘Oh, Mr. Charlie, don’t speak to me at all! I am very unhappy—already.’
‘It will not make you more unhappy to speak to an old friend like me. And who has made you unhappy, my bonnie lady? I wish I had the paying of him. It’ll be that loon of a brother of yours.’
‘How dare you speak so of my brother?’ cried Janet with momentary energy, and then she began to cry, unable to restrain herself in her agitation. ‘Oh, go away! If you please, will you go away?’
‘And do you want to hear no more of the pony?’ said Charlie Blackmore. ‘She’s as bonny a little beast as ever stepped, and fit to carry a princess—or Miss Janet Torrance. I’ve kept my word. She’s just been bred like a princess, without doing a day’s work. I’ve kept her, as I said I would for you.’
‘Oh, I hope you do not mean that,’ cried Janet. ‘Oh, Mr. Charlie, I hope it was not my fault! I was very, very young then, and I did not know there was any harm in it. Oh, I hope you have not kept her for me!’
‘What harm was there in it?’ he said, putting his hand on her arm, which Janet drew away as if his touch had been fire. ‘Come now, Miss Janet, you must be reasonable. There was no harm in it more than there is in a little crack by ourselves, between you and me.’
Janet shrank into the corner of the seat away from him. ‘There was harm,’ she said, ‘for I never told mother; and there is harm now, for if anyone I knew were to come here and see us I would die of shame.’
‘No, my bonnie lady, you would not die; that’s too strong,’ said Blackmore. ‘And do you know it’s not civil to draw away like that. When we met in the East road you were not so frightened. You gave me many a glint of your eyes then, and many a pleasant word. And do you mind the long rides we had, and you as sorry when they were over as me? And the miles that I rode to bring you the pony and give you pleasure, though you turn from me now?’