“Of course you may,” said the Squire. “Young Bristow and I were talking over some business affairs before, that would have had no interest for you, and that you know nothing about.” “It’s about young Bristow, as you call him, that I have come to see you this morning.” “Oh, indeed,” said the Squire drily. Then he took off his spectacles, and rubbed them with his pocket handkerchief, and began to whistle a tune under his breath. Mrs. McDermott glared fiercely at him, and her voice took an added tone of asperity when she spoke again. “I suppose you are aware that your protégé is making violent love to your daughter, or else that your daughter is making violent love to him: I hardly know which it is!” “What!” thundered the Squire, as he started to his feet. “What is that you say, Fanny McDermott?” “Simply this: that there is a lot of lovemaking going on between Jane and Mr. Bristow. If it is done with your sanction, I have not another word to say. But if you tell me that you know nothing about it, I can only say that you must have been as blind as a bat and as stupid as an owl.” “Thank you, Fanny—thank you,” said the Squire sadly, as he sat down in his chair again. “I dare say I have been both blind and stupid; and if what you tell me is true, I must have been.” “Miss Jane couldn’t long deceive me,” said the widow spitefully. “Miss Jane is too good a girl to deceive anybody.” “Oh, in love matters we women hold that everything is fair. Deceit then becomes deceit no longer. We call it by a prettier name.” Her brother was not heeding her: he was lost in his own thoughts. “The young vagabond!” he said at last. “So that’s the way he’s been hoodwinking me, is it? But I’ll teach him: I’ll have him know that I’m not to be made a fool of in that way. Make love to my daughter, indeed! I’ll have him here to-morrow morning, and tell him a bit of my mind that will astonish him considerably.” “Why wait till to-morrow? Why not send for him now?” “Because he left here a quarter of an hour ago. “Oh, you would not have far to send for him.” “What do you mean?” “Simply that he and Jane are in the shrubbery together at the present moment.” The Squire stared at her helplessly for a moment or two. “How do you know that?” he said at last, speaking very quietly. “Because my maid, who was returning from an errand, saw them walking there, arm in arm.” She paused, as if expecting her brother to say something, but he did not speak. “I have not had my eyes shut, I assure you,” she went on. “But in these matters women are always more quick-sighted than men. From the very first hour of my seeing them together I had my suspicions. All their walking and talking together couldn’t be for nothing. All their hand-shakings and sly glances into each other’s eyes couldn’t be without a meaning.”