She had shrunk almost imperceptibly away from him.
“I hope you have not been in any of those horrid cottages, Richard? The wretched people are so dirty and careless. Oh, the thought of the plague always terrifies me.”
Jeffray glanced at her gravely and with slight surprise. Miss Hardacre’s expression was one of petulant impatience.
“It will be a terrible thing, Jilian,” he said, “if the villagers are stricken down. The poor people are so ignorant that they cannot help themselves.”
“La, Richard, it will be their own fault, the silly, dirty wretches. Let me implore you not to go into Rodenham village.”
“I am not afraid,” quoth Mr. Richard, quietly.
“But you must think of me, sir. I do not want to be disfigured for life. Sir Peter would never let me be inoculated—or whatever they call it. He always said it was a nasty piece of nonsense.”
Richard hung his head a little, and noticed that Miss Hardacre still held her perfumed person at some slight distance from him.
“But, Jilian,” he said, “if the poor folk are ill I must try to do something to help them.”
The sweet angel showed further symptoms of impatience, even of temper. She carried her head very haughtily, and looked with some imperiousness at her betrothed.