"Well, yes .... yes, it's about you, dear."
Oh, nothing serious, not to say serious! Just a few flighty girls boasting about the attentions he was paying them. And then older people, who ought to know better, gibble-gabbling about the dangers to young women—as if the dangers to young men were not greater, sometimes far greater.
"Not that I don't sympathise with the girls," said Janet, "living here, poor things, on this sandy headland, while the best of the Manx boys are going away to America, year after year, and never a man creature younger than their fathers and grandfathers about to pass the time of day with, except the heavy-footed omathauns that are left."
What wonder that when a young man of another sort came about, and showed them the courtesy a man always shows to a woman, whatever she is, when he is a gentleman born—just a smile, or a nod, or a kind word on the road, or the lifting of his hat, or a hand over a stile perhaps—what wonder if the poor foolish young things began to dream dreams and see visions.
"But that's just where the danger comes in, dear," said Janet. "Oh, I'm a woman myself, and I was young once, you know, and perhaps I remember how the heavens seem to open for a girl when she thinks two eyes look at her with love, and she feels as if she could give herself away, with everything she is or will be, and care nothing for the future. But only think what a terrible thing it would be if some simple girl of that sort got into trouble on your account."
"Don't be afraid of that, Janet," said Victor in a low voice. "No girl in the island, or in the world either, has ever come to any harm through me—or ever will do."
There came the sound of a faint gasp in the darkness, and then Janet cried:
"God bless you for saying that, dear! I knew you would! And don't think your silly old Janet believed the lying stories they told of you. 'Deed no, that she didn't and never will do, never! But all the same a young man can't be too careful!"
There were bad girls about also—real scheming, designing huzzies! Some of them were good-looking young vixens too, for it wasn't the good ones only that God made beautiful. And when a man was young and handsome and clever and charming and well-off and had all the world before him, they threw themselves in his way, and didn't mind what disgrace they got into if they could only compel him to marry them.
"But think of a slut like that coming to live as mistress here—here in the house of Isobel Stowell!"