that was the substance of my little revelation.Youth is almost always selfish, just as it is almost always conceited, and, after all, when it's combined with health and good parts, good looks and good spirits, it has a right to be, and I easily forgive it if it be really youth.Still it's a question of degree, and what stuck out of Jasper Nettlepoint--if, of course, one had the intelligence for it--was that his egotism had a hardness, his love of his own way an avidity.These elements were jaunty and prosperous, they were accustomed to prevail.He was fond, very fond, of women; they were necessary to him--that was in his type; but he wasn't in the least in love with Grace Mavis.Among the reflexions I quickly made this was the one that was most to the point.There was a degree of awkwardness, after a minute, in the way we were planted there, though the apprehension of it was doubtless not in the least with himself.
To dissimulate my own share in it, at any rate, I asked him how his mother might be.
His answer was unexpected."You had better go down and see.""Not till Miss Mavis is tired of me."
She said nothing to this and I made her walk again.For some minutes she failed to speak; then, rather abruptly, she began: "I've seen you talking to that lady who sits at our table--the one who has so many children.""Mrs.Peck? Oh yes, one has inevitably talked with Mrs.Peck.""Do you know her very well?"
"Only as one knows people at sea.An acquaintance makes itself.It doesn't mean very much.""She doesn't speak to me--she might if she wanted.""That's just what she says of you--that you might speak to her.""Oh if she's waiting for that!" said my companion with a laugh.Then she added: "She lives in our street, nearly opposite.""Precisely.That's the reason why she thinks you coy or haughty.
She has seen you so often and seems to know so much about you.""What does she know about me?"
"Ah you must ask her--I can't tell you!"
"I don't care what she knows," said my young lady.After a moment she went on: "She must have seen I ain't very sociable." And then, "What are you laughing at?" she asked.
"Well"--my amusement was difficult to explain--"you're not very sociable, and yet somehow you are.Mrs.Peck is, at any rate, and thought that ought to make it easy for you to enter into conversation with her.""Oh I don't care for her conversation--I know what it amounts to." Imade no reply--I scarcely knew what reply to make--and the girl went on: "I know what she thinks and I know what she says." Still I was silent, but the next moment I saw my discretion had been wasted, for Miss Mavis put to me straight: "Does she make out that she knows Mr.
Porterfield?"
"No, she only claims she knows a lady who knows him.""Yes, that's it--Mrs.Jeremie.Mrs.Jeremie's an idiot!" I wasn't in a position to controvert this, and presently my young lady said she would sit down.I left her in her chair--I saw that she preferred it--and wandered to a distance.A few minutes later I met Jasper again, and he stopped of his own accord to say: "We shall be in about six in the evening of our eleventh day--they promise it.""If nothing happens, of course."
"Well, what's going to happen?"
"That's just what I'm wondering!" And I turned away and went below with the foolish but innocent satisfaction of thinking I had mystified him.