Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/85

86 "Oh, thank you very much!" said the young man unexpectedly. "That's very kind and candid of you. Now we can get on. There's nothing like straightforwardness. Your friend wouldn't say anything except that you were disappointed in me."

"I wasn't," said Jane. "I didn't expect anything but disappointment."

"I have Irish blood in me, too," he said, and for an instant the conversation lapsed Then the young man began to speak, very quickly:

"I didn't betray you. At least, not more than I was obliged to do."

"Obliged!" said Jane.

"Yes—obliged," said he; "and do sit down. The steps of the sundial are quite dry, and your ankle . . ."

"Thank you," said Jane; "my ankle is my own affair."

"Quite so," he said, "but . . . Well—what happened was this. After you'd gone away in the cab I went back to the house to—to tidy up the pail and the towels and candles and so on, and before I'd done a single thing the owner of the house came in. There was the pail, there was the towel, the bottle of port with its neck knocked off. There was I, holding a perfectly unexplainable handkerchief and an absolutely speaking pink scarf. And he had seen the carriage drive away from the door! What was I to do? Short of pretending to be dumb and deaf, what could I do?"

There was certainly something in that, Lucilla's anxious glance at her friend seemed to plead. And Jane acknowledged that there certainly was by suddenly sitting down on the steps of the sundial and saying, "Well?"

"Well," repeated the young man, much encouraged, "I told him the exact truth. If anything inexact would have been of the slightest use I would gladly have perjured myself for you. But I couldn't make up a better story than the truth," he urged shamelessly. "I told him everything—or almost. But when he asked me who you were, I told him