"Oh, Arthur—that's middling kind of you, that's neighbourly. But aren't you going into Romney yourself?"
"I've nothing particular to go for. I don't want to buy. If I went it ud only be to look at stock."
"Well, I'd take it as a real kindness if you'd drive in Ellen to Rye on Wednesday. The show's there only for the one day, and nobody else is going up from these parts save the Cobbs, and I don't want Ellen to go along with them 'cos of that Tom Cobb what's come back and up to no good."
"I'm only too pleased to do anything for you, Joanna, as you know well."
"Yes, I know it well. You've been a hem good neighbour to me, Arthur."
"A neighbour ain't so good as I'd like to be."
"Oh, don't you git started on that again—I thought you'd done."
"I'll never have done of that."
Joanna looked vexed. Alce's wooing had grown stale, and no longer gratified her. She could not help comparing his sandy-haired sedateness with her memories of Martin's fire and youth—that dead sweetheart had made it impossible for her to look at a man who was not eager and virile; her admirers were now all, except for him, younger than herself. She liked his friendship, his society, his ready and unselfish support, but she could not bear to think of him as a suitor, and there was almost disdain in her eyes.
"I don't like to hear such talk from you," she said coldly. Then she remembered the silver tea-set which he had never taken back, and the offer he had made just now.... "Not but that you ain't a good friend to me, Arthur—my best."