Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/210

200 forces it upon my mind. They are scandalised, they are horrified. They never heard anything so dreadful. Miss Francie, that ain't good enough! They know what's in the papers every day of their lives and they know how it got there. They are simply making the thing a pretext to break—because they don't think you're fashionable enough. They're delighted to strike a pretext they can work, and they're all as merry together round there as a lot of boys when school don't keep. That's my view of the business."

"Oh—how can you say such a thing?" drawled Francie, with a tremor in her voice that struck her sister. Her eyes met Delia's at the same moment, and this young woman's heart bounded with the sense that she was safe. Mr. Flack's indelicacy attempted to prove too much (though Miss Dosson had crude notions about the license of the press she felt, even as an untutored woman, what a false step he was now taking), and it seemed to her that Francie, who was revolted (the way she looked at her, in horror, showed that), could be trusted to check his advance.

"What does it matter what he says, my dear?" she cried. "Do make him drop the subject—he's talking very wild. I'm going down to see what father means—I never heard of anything so flat!" At the door she paused a moment to add mutely, with a pressing glance, "Now just wipe him out—mind!" It was the same injunction she had