'Oh, well—' he made a queer, jerking movement.
'You'll say it's not my business. But please don't … er … let people worry her—get on her nerves. It does rather, you know. And—and she's not fit.'
'I'm afraid,' I said, putting up my lorgnette, 'I do not altogether understand you, Mr. Gideon. I am naturally acquainted with my daughter's state better than any one else can be.'
'It gets on her nerves,' he muttered again. Then, after a moment of silent hesitation, he half shrugged his shoulders, mumbled, 'Oh, well,' and jerked away.
A strange person! Amazingly rude and ill-bred. To take upon himself to warn me to take care of my own child! And what did he mean 'got on her nerves?' I really began to think he must be a little mad. But one thing was apparent; his feeling towards Jane was, as I had long suspected, much warmer than was right in the circumstances. He had, I made no doubt, come from her just now.
I found Jane silent and unresponsive. She was not writing when I came in, but sitting doing nothing. She said nothing to me about Mr. Gideon's call, till I mentioned him myself. Then she seemed to stiffen a little; I saw her hands clench over the arms of her chair.
'His manner was very strange,' I said. 'I couldn't help wondering if he had been having anything.'
'If he was drunk, you mean,' said Jane. 'I dare say.'
'Then he does!' I cried, a little surprised.
Jane said not that she knew of. But every one did sometimes. Which was just the disagreeable, cynical way of talking that I regret in her and Johnny. As if she did not know numbers of straight, clean-living, decent men and women who never had too much in their lives. But, anyhow, it convinced me that Mr. Gideon did drink too much, and that she knew it.