"
"So has your mother herself--now."
"She's so good as to say so--to oblige you."
"She'd oblige me a great deal more by reassuring me. I know perfectly of
your knowing I've told her that Miss Mavis is greatly talked about."
"Yes, but what on earth does it matter?"
"It matters as a sign."
"A sign of what?"
"That she's in a false position."
Jasper puffed his cigar with his eyes on the horizon, and I had, a little
unexpectedly, the sense of producing a certain effect on him. "I don't
know whether it's _your_ business, what you're attempting to discuss but
it really strikes me it's none of mine. What have I to do with the
tattle with which a pack of old women console themselves for not being
sea-sick?"
"Do you call it tattle that Miss Mavis is in love with you?"
"Drivelling."
"Then," I retorted, "you're very ungrateful. The tattle of a pack of old
women has this importance, that she suspects, or she knows, it exists,
and that decent girls are for the most part very sensitive to that sort
of thing. To be prepared not to heed it in this case she must have a
reason, and the reason must be the one I've taken the liberty to call
your attention to."
"In love with me in six days, just like that?"--and he still looked away
through narrowed eyelids.
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