“But you said you were not coming to-night,” said Janet.
“So I did,” he answered, laughing; “but never mind—not to dinner, certainly. You must promise me to play, and not to stop short all at once, as you did the other night, whatever you may hear.”
“Oh, did you hear it too?” Janet cried, clasping her hands.
“I don’t think I heard anything. There are queer sounds sometimes about that Harwood house—and old Vicars is queer; don’t you think so? Never mind, Miss Summerhayes, you and I have nothing to do with that.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Janet. “I have nothing at all to do with it; but you, who are a great friend of the family, and have known them so long, you ought not to talk like that.”
“What am I saying?” said Meredith; “that you and I have nothing to do with the secrets of the family, if they have any. Isn’t that quite true?”
“We are not at all in the same position,” said Janet, indignantly. “I am a stranger and the governess. You are their—dear friend.”
Mr. Meredith laughed low, with vanity and self-complacence.
“Am I a ‘dear friend’?—you flatter me very much, Miss Summerhayes—of Julia, for instance, who says the prettiest things about me. I see you’ve been working in my favor, for she’s no longer so uncivil as she used to be.”
“Oh, Mr. Meredith, she means no harm; she’s only so—so——”