A second voice replied:
"Even if they are true, what does it matter to you? You have seen the man only three times."
She put the dress away, and looked at herself haughtily in the mirror. What manner of woman was she to be so moved by a breath of scandal? If true—well—there was an end of it. She would neither bend her head to listen, nor open her mouth to speak. She had enough pride to carry her past such an incident that had been enlarged by her own loneliness, and touched with the delight of youth and of spring.
Nance had work to keep her busy, though old David Barfoot took the heavy jobs, and washed the crockery, and scrubbed the floors. At the midday meal Nance and her father hardly spoke. She meant to spend the afternoon in her piece of garden upon the terrace, planting out a few seedlings and plucking up assertive weeds. David had promised to come round with his scythe and cut the grass that was growing rank and long.
But though her hands were busy, Nance could not win her thoughts away from the revelation of the morning. She felt sore, mistrustful, incredulous. What did she know of Jasper Benham? Was it true that he was pledged to marry his cousin? She, Nance, had spoken of friendliness. Perhaps he had thought of nothing but friendliness? Her heart told her that it was not so.
Anthony Durrell came out with a book in his hand, and began to pace up and down the terrace. Sometimes he would break out into declamation, waving the book, and throwing his head back like an orator sending words to a distance.
Nance planted her seedlings one by one, kneeling on an old sack, her head bowed over the brown soil.
"Salve, Domine. How go the elegiacs?"
Nance looked up with a start. It was another voice, not her father's, that had spoken, and the voice was the voice she had heard that night in her father's room.