She smiled the harshness out of the words.
"All the same," she went on, "I think you ought to tell her mother. I don't approve of Mary myself—I think her conduct to her children simply shocking——" she frowned again—"the secrecy—and this sudden marriage! Still, she brought Jill into the world—it's her daughter, not mine. It's paying her back in her own coin ... but I know I ought to stop this folly!"
"But you won't?" His voice was very earnest. "Look here, Miss Uniacke. She's never given a thought to Jill—or Roddy either, latterly. She's bringing a penniless, idle chap into her home to live with her children. She'll have to support him—you know that? At their expense! For, after all, it's Colonel Uniacke's money, you know, that she holds in trust for the next generation. It means a cruel time for them under the thumb of that rotter, Stephen. On a slender income, deprived of their rights and shadowed by this Suffrage nonsense.
"Think of Jill, living with Stephen?—and Roddy—a schoolboy, in his hands...!
"Instead of which, here am I—luckily a rich man; able to give the boy a chance, and Jill ... pretty well all she wants!
"I'd just like you to see some pearls I've got for her in the Roman bank"—he threw his head back and laughed boyishly, with a note of triumph—"They'd make Stephen's mouth water—damn the chap!—I beg your pardon!"
But Miss Uniacke smiled grimly; forgetful of the listening parrot.
McTaggart, encouraged, started again.
"I can't bear to think of Jill for a day in the house with that man. That's why I'm doing this, entirely, to get her away before he returns. Can't you guess what it will save her? The bitterness of seeing him there, ruling in her father's place, in the old home, where he lived..."
"Stop!" Miss Uniacke grasped his arm—"I can't stand it!—It's not fair. Edward..." She choked on the name.