‘Well,’ said Florence, with judicial calm, ‘I have said that I think I am on your side.’
A pause again, and Florence went on with her work steadily. Nobody came—the May sunshine fell over the lawn without a shadow to break it. Would they never come back, Florry asked herself? And yet the present situation was not without its charm. All his displeasure was oozing out of his fingers’ ends, all his unwillingness to be dictated to by a girl. He thought he would like it if she would dictate to him again, and tell him what was his duty. No; he did not think this, he only felt it vaguely—touched, he could not tell why, by her avowal of being on his side. Was he not her spiritual superior, and was it not her duty, as soon as she heard his sentiments on the subject, to be on his side? But somehow he did not feel so sure of that position, and rather wanted to hear her unbiassed opinion and what she would say.
‘Your brother has been a great help to me,’ he said again.
He would not for the world have reminded her of what she had said that day. And, of course, she had said nothing in so many words about her brother. He was by no means sure that it was not a mean thing thrusting this forward to make her think she was obliged to him, but yet—when a man is at his wits’ end, what can he say?
‘We have all been so glad to see that Jim was beginning—to take an interest——’
‘And he knows so much,’ pursued the curate, ‘more than I do. If we were to get up a club, he might do almost anything he pleased with the men. I have to thank you, Miss Florence,’ he went on, finding as he proceeded that it was necessary to be definite if he was to make any impression, ‘for giving me a hint——’
‘I don’t think I gave you any hint,’ said Florence, dropping her scissors; while she stooped for them she went on, saying quickly: ‘We know what we owe to you; we all feel it. One can’t talk of such things, Mr. Osborne, and I was very bold and disagreeable once; but if you think I don’t thank you from my heart——’
‘Florence!’ said the curate.
‘Oh, I don’t mind, call me whatever you like. You had a good right to be angry, and I took a great deal, a very great deal upon me—but if you knew how we all thanked you from the bottom of our hearts.’
‘Florence!’ the curate said again; he had got down on his knee on the carpet to look for the scissors too—they were strange scissors to disappear like that—scissors are not round things like a ring or a reel of cotton to run into a corner; yet they eluded both these people who were looking for them, and who, not finding them, suddenly somehow looked at each other, probably for the first time since that day.