"Well? Colin, have you so low an opinion of the dignity of your charge
as to expect her to pour out her secrets to the first ear in her way?"
"Oh, if she has told you in confidence."
"No, she has not told me in confidence; she knew better."
"She has told you nothing?"
"Nothing!" and Ermine indulged in a fit of laughter at his discomfiture,
so comical that he could not but laugh himself, as he said, "Ah! the
pleasure of disappointing me quite consoles you."
"No; the proof of the discretion of womanhood does that! You thought,
because she tells all her troubles to you, that she must needs do so to
the rest of the world."
"There is little difference between telling you and me."
"That's the fault of your discretion, not of hers."
"I should like to know who has been annoying her. I suspect--"
"So do I. And when you get the confidence at first hand, you will
receive it with a better grace than if you had had a contraband
foretaste."
He smiled. "I thought yours a more confidence-winning face, Ermine."
"That depends on my respect for the individual. Now I thought Lady
Temple would much prefer my looking another way, and talking about
Conrade's Latin grammar, to my holding out my arms and inviting her to
pour into my tender breast what another time she had rather not know
that I knew."
"That is being an honourable woman," he said, and Rose's return ended
the exchange of speculations; but it must be confessed that at their
next meeting Ermine's look of suppressed inquiry quite compensated for
her previous banter, more especially as neither had he any confidence to
reveal or conceal, only the tidings that the riders, whose coalition had
justified Lady Temple's prudence, had met Mr. Touchett wandering in the
lanes in the twilight, apparently without a clear idea of what he was
doing there. And on the next evening there was quite an excitement, the
curate looked so ill, and had broken quite down when he was practising
with the choir boys before church; he had, indeed, gone safely through
the services, but at school he had been entirely at a loss as to what
Sunday it was, and had still more unfortunately forgotten that to be
extra civil to Miss Villars was the only hope of retaining her services,
for he had walked by her with less attention than if she had been the
meanest scholar. Nay, when his most faithful curatolatress had offered
to submit to him a design for an illumination for Christmas, he had
escaped from her with a desperate and mysterious answer that he had
nothing to do with illumination, he hoped it would be as sombre as
possible.
No wonder Avonmouth was astonished, and that guesses were not confined
to Mackarel Lane.