"So I hear," she remarked quietly.
Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on getting his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather startled him. "What have you heard?" he said abruptly.
"Oh, nothing—the ordinary stupid gossip," she said, though she was watching him rather closely. "Are you going to stay with us for the next fortnight?"
"No, I have got rooms at the Queen's."
"I thought so. One might have expected you, however, to stay with your relations when you came to Penzance."
"Oh, that's all gammon, Jue," he said: "you know very well your father doesn't care to have any one stay with you—it's too much bother. You'll have quite enough of me while I am in Penzance."
"Shall we have anything of you?" she said with apparent indifference. "I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma had already come here."
"And what if they have?" he said with unnecessary fierceness.
"Well, Harry," she said, "you needn't get unto a temper about it, but people will talk, you know; and they say that your attentions to that young lady are rather marked, considering that she is engaged to be married; and you have induced your mother to make a pet of her. Shall I go on?"
"No, you needn't," he said with a strong effort to overcome his anger. "You're quite right—people do talk, but they wouldn't talk so much if other people didn't carry tales. Why, it isn't like you, Jue! I thought you were another sort. And about this girl, of all girls in the world!"