第42章 TO THE WINNING SIDE(6)

'Very dubiously; but then what else was to be expected? Of course, the respectable and intelligible path marked out for both of them points to a lifetime of governessing. But the girls have no relish for that; they'd rather do almost anything. We talked over all the aspects of the situation seriously enough--it is desperately serious, no doubt of that. I told them fairly all the hardships they would have to face--described the typical London lodgings, and so on. Still, there's an adventurous vein in them, and they decided for the risk. If it came to the worst I suppose they could still find governess work.'

'Let us hope better things.'

'Yes. But now, I should have felt far more reluctant to let them come here in this way hadn't it been that they regard you as a friend. To-morrow morning you will probably hear from one or both of them. Perhaps it would have been better if I had left them to tell you all this, but I felt I should like to see you and--put it in my own way. I think you'll understand this feeling, Miss Yule. I wanted, in fact, to hear from yourself that you would be a friend to the poor girls.'

'Oh, you already know that! I shall be so very glad to see them often.'

Marian's voice lent itself very naturally and sweetly to the expression of warm feeling. Emphasis was not her habit; it only needed that she should put off her ordinary reserve, utter quietly the emotional thought which so seldom might declare itself, and her tones had an exquisite womanliness.

Jasper looked full into her face.

'In that case they won't miss the comfort of home so much. Of course they will have to go into very modest lodgings indeed. Ihave already been looking about. I should like to find rooms for them somewhere near my own place; it's a decent neighbourhood, and the park is at hand, and then they wouldn't be very far from you. They thought it might be possible to make a joint establishment with me, but I'm afraid that's out of the question.

The lodgings we should want in that case, everything considered, would cost more than the sum of our expenses if we live apart.

Besides, there's no harm in saying that I don't think we should get along very well together. We're all of us rather quarrelsome, to tell the truth, and we try each other's tempers.'

Marian smiled and looked puzzled.

'Shouldn't you have thought that?'

'I have seen no signs of quarrelsomeness.'

'I'm not sure that the worst fault is on my side. Why should one condemn oneself against conscience? Maud is perhaps the hardest to get along with. She has a sort of arrogance, an exaggeration of something I am quite aware of in myself. You have noticed that trait in me?'

'Arrogance--I think not. You have self-confidence.'

'Which goes into extremes now and then. But, putting myself aside, I feel pretty sure that the girls won't seem quarrelsome to you; they would have to be very fractious indeed before that were possible.'

'We shall continue to be friends, I am sure.'

Jasper let his eyes wander about the room.

'This is your father's study?'

'Yes.'

'Perhaps it would have seemed odd to Mr Yule if I had come in and begun to talk to him about these purely private affairs. He knows me so very slightly. But, in calling here for the first time-- '

An unusual embarrassment checked him.

'I will explain to father your very natural wish to speak of these things,' said Marian, with tact.