"Speak a little lower," said Louie, glancing at the babe. "Sit down and tell me what it is."
But Kitty would not sit. Incapable of grandeurs of style, she nevertheless attempted them.
"I don"t know whether you happen to be aware what people are saying about you," she said. Her boat-shaped hat and Inverness cape gave her a little the appearance of a scanty tree with which some topiary artist had done his best.
Louie could not help smiling a little; she could have that kind of thing out with herself without calling in Kitty.
"My dear! Of course I know they might be saying anything!" She drew her child a little closer to her.
"Suppose we keep the my dears till we"ve finished talking," said Kitty coldly. "I mean what they"re saying at the Business School."
Louie spoke quietly. "I suppose you mean about me and my boy?"
"Yes, I do mean that, and I"ve come to ask you to your face; _I"m_ not the one to beat about the bush! I want to know who----" There was no need for Kitty to complete the sentence.
"You won"t know that," said Louie, more quietly still.
"Ah! perhaps you won"t tell me because you daren"t?"
"I"ve not told anybody, and I"m not going to tell you. I"d die first.
Perhaps before we go any further you"ll tell me why you want to know?"
"You don"t suppose I"d ask you if it wasn"t my business, do you?"
Slowly Louie turned her eyes on her. She spoke slowly too. "We should get on more quickly if you didn"t jump so to conclusions," she said.
"I don"t know what your conclusions are, but you seem to have made your mind up about something. If you"ll change your tone I"ll talk to you; if you won"t, I won"t."
At that Kitty began to sob. She had to lift her veil in order to put a wisp of wet handkerchief to her eyes. But she changed her tone.
"I only want to know," she said. "And I don"t want to know if it isn"t my business. But I _have_ seen him look at you, and he _did_ dance with you, and when they said----"
"Who said?" Louie interrupted; but she had already made a guess. "And said what?"
"Jeff, of course," Kitty replied. "Miriam Levey noticed him looking at you first, but after that I saw for myself. And you did dance with him. I might forgive him, but I"d never, never forgive _you_."
Louie suddenly put a question. Apparently it was for nothing less preposterous than that question that Kitty was here.
"One moment," she said. "Do you mean there"s something about Mr.
Jeffries and myself you want to know?"
"Yes; and I mean to know," Kitty snapped.
"And that"s all?"
"Enough, _I_ should say!"
"Please hear me out. In fact"--Louie paused for a moment and then rapped out sharply--"you want to know whether my lover was Mr.
Jeffries?"
"That"ll do to be going on with," said Kitty sullenly.
"Then I"ll tell you if you"ll tell me who said he was."
"I don"t see what that"s got to do with it, but I"ll tell you if you like. Archie Merridew said so. There!"
Archie Merridew!--But Louie restrained her gasp. "Thank you," she said. "May I ask whether you"ve asked Mr. Jeffries? _He_ might be in a position to know, you know."
"No, I haven"t."
"But evidently you"ve seen something in his manner that would make it not quite impossible?"
"I tell you, you"ve danced with him, and he"s looked at you in a sort of way--more than once, Miriam says--and you"re trying to shuffle out of the question," said Kitty, her suspicions aflame again.
"Oh, I"ll answer the question! If it had been he"--she glanced at the little head under her breast--"I"d tell you in a minute--for my baby"s sake, you see. But it was not; and you might have saved yourself a journey if you"d gone to him first. And now please tell me a little more."
Kitty still looked at her suspiciously. "You said you"d die sooner than tell," she cried quaveringly.
"You mean you don"t believe me? Well, I can"t make you. If I told you the truth you"d just think I"d made up a name."
"It _was_ somebody else?" cried Kitty eagerly.
If it wasn"t Mr. Jeffries, naturally--there was the child----
"Oh, I _want_ to believe you!" Kitty suddenly broke out.
Louie laughed desperately. "Well, my dear, you may. If it was so, I suppose you"d get it out of me. It isn"t, that"s all. And now I think I"ve a right to know exactly what this Mr. Merridew has been saying."
Kitty looked hard at her for one moment longer, and then sank on her knees by the side of the bed. She had no choice but to believe. She broke into a torrent of words, low-spoken, not to rouse the child.
Louie heard them, amazed. Slowly her incredulity turned into contempt.
The horrid little beast! But, after all, she was not surprised. It was all in his character. Perhaps he had been drunk; perhaps it was merely a fancy-stationery idea of humour. Not that she minded a straw; she laughed; she supposed she was there to have stones thrown at her; it was merely a little annoying that they were not thrown straighter. She could picture the over-pocket-monied little bounder, measuring all pecks out of his own bushel, leaning up against a bar somewhere, probably too fuddled to distinguish his own humorous fancy from a story of life with names given, and believing it himself by the time he had repeated it once or twice.
The little worm!
"But," she said presently, disgustedly smiling, "_you_ remember when I came to the School, and that I asked _you_ who Mr. Jeffries was----"
"Of course!" said Kitty, suddenly entirely believing. "How absurd! But oh, I do love him so."
Louie mused.
"And he--Mr. Jeffries--knows nothing about this, you say?" she asked presently.
"No. He thinks something"s wrong. He"s been teaching at the School, you know, and of course he must have wondered what was the matter all this last week."
"It"s a week since Mr. Merridew--did me this favour?"
"Yes. But perhaps Jeff thought----" She checked herself.