"Uncle, did it ever strike you that that greasy money-lender wants to marry me himself?"
The question startled John Allandale more than anything else could have done. He turned sharply round and faced his niece.
"Marry you, Jacky?" he repeated. "I never thought of it."
"It isn't to be supposed that you would have done so."
There was the faintest tinge of bitterness in the girl's answer.
"And do you really think that he wants to marry you?"
"I don't know quite. Perhaps I am wrong, uncle, and my imagination has run away with me. Yes, I sometimes think he wants to marry me."
They both relapsed into silence. Then her uncle spoke again.
"Jacky, what you have just said has made something plain to me which I could not understand before. He came and gave me—unsolicited, mind—"a little eagerly, "a detailed account of Bunning-Ford's circumstances, and—"
"Endeavored to bully you into sending him about his business. Poor old Bill! And what was his account of him?"