“Don’t talk so about a—a crime, Julia: and don’t say me instead of I,” Janet cried, hoping to stop this embarrassing discussion.
“Oh, what does stupid grammar matter! My opinion is that it must have been something about a girl.”
“Julia!” cried the governess, taking refuge in the shock of conventional horror at such a suggestion from such a quarter.
“Oh, you know as well as I do what Charley was. I have heard even mamma say that he couldn’t resist making himself agreeable, whoever it was. That’s mamma’s way of putting it. Why, he has made eyes even at me—Gussy’s sister, and only fifteen, and hating him as I do! It stands to reason that he did it to everybody else. And suppose there was some silly girl who thought it meant something, and somebody belonging to her who wouldn’t put up with it? Oh, I’ve wished often I was a man and could knock him down!”
“When a man is lying so ill as he is, it is dreadful to talk of hating him.”
“Oh, but you can’t help it, however dreadful it may be! and, besides, he’s getting better. You don’t like him yourself.”
“I never said so,” said Janet.
“But I know. And you did like him once. What has made you change your mind? Do you know—but I won’t say it; you will be angry.”
“You had better say it—whatever you want to say.”
“Well, then, I think—you needn’t blaze out upon me, for of course I may be quite silly—Janet, I think you know something about it. There! Oh, you may kill me if you like with your eyes, but that won’t make any difference! I think you’ve known something about it all the time.”