"Nothing—why?"
"Oh, it struck me you looked worried."
"What should I be worried about?"
"There's a lot of things you might be worried about. What did you tell me about your wurzels?"
"They're not so bad."
"Then I can't see as there's any need for you to look glum."
"No more there ain't," said Arthur in the voice of a man making a desperate decision.
§25
It was not till nearly a month later that Joanna heard that people were "talking" about Ellen and Sir Harry. Gossip generally took some time to reach her, owing to her sex, which was not privileged to frequent the Woolpack bar, where rumours invariably had a large private circulation before they were finally published at some auction or market. She resented this disability, but in spite of the general daring of her outlook and behaviour, nothing would have induced her to enter the Woolpack save by the discreet door of the landlady's parlour, where she occasionally sipped a glass of ale. However, she had means of acquiring knowledge, though not so quickly as those women who were provided with husbands and sons. On this occasion Mene Tekel Fagge brought the news, through the looker at Slinches, with whom she was walking out.
"That'll do, Mene," said Joanna to her handmaiden, "you always was the one to pick up idle tales, and Dansay should ought to be ashamed of himself, drinking and talking the way he does. Now you go and tell Peter Crouch to bring me round the trap."