I tried to make him explain himself.
“Why should Miss Rachel put an obstacle in your way?” I inquired. “Isn’t it her interest to help you?”
“Wait a little, Mr. Betteredge—wait a little.”
Cleverer heads than mine might have seen his drift. Or a person less fond of Miss Rachel than I was, might have seen his drift. My lady’s horror of him might (as I have since thought) have meant that she saw his drift (as the scripture says) “in a glass darkly.” I didn’t see it yet—that’s all I know.
“What’s to be done next?” I asked.
Sergeant Cuff finished the nail on which he was then at work, looked at it for a moment with a melancholy interest, and put up his penknife.
“Come out into the garden,” he said, “and let’s have a look at the roses.”
CHAPTER XIV
The nearest way to the garden, on going out of my lady’s sitting-room, was by the shrubbery path, which you already know of. For the sake of your better understanding of what is now to come, I may add to this, that the shrubbery path was Mr. Franklin’s favourite walk. When he was out in the grounds, and when we failed to find him anywhere else, we generally found him here.
I am afraid I must own that I am rather an obstinate old man. The more firmly Sergeant Cuff kept his thoughts shut up from me, the more firmly I persisted in trying to look in at them. As we turned into the shrubbery path, I attempted to circumvent him in another way.