Miss Grey felt that there must be an explanation of this, though she could not make it out as yet; and, above all, she was very sure that Mr. Osborne’s rudeness to the Plowdens did not come from nothing. There must be a reason for it. Whatever it meant, indifference was certainly the last thing it could mean. And Jim’s complaisance in respect to his new friendship with the curate made the whole question still more complicated. ‘It’s him that looks as if he liked me.’ Looks as if he liked Jim, and looks as if he disliked Florence! But that was more than Miss Grey, with all her knowledge of man, and even of curate-kind, could understand. And the slight sharpness in the tone of Florence threw an additional cloud upon the whole matter. Nobody but must feel that it was good for Jim to be engaged in the curate’s schemes instead of talking second-hand politics at the ‘Blue Boar.’ But Florence’s voice had a sharp tone in it, and in Florence’s self there was a sort of thrill of offended dignity, which Miss Grey was quick to see. The girl was wounded, and not much wonder. Her part of the performance was precisely the one in which Mr. Osborne seemed to take no interest. To be sure, Miss Grey was not aware that since that fated morning Florence and he had not exchanged one word that was not indispensable to the preservation of appearances. And yet she had not refused Mr. Osborne, which would have explained everything--at least, there was no reason to suppose that she had refused him. Had she done so it would somehow have oozed out. Birds of the air carry these matters. It shows upon the aspect of the rejected more surely than does the delight of acceptance. And besides, Florence Plowden had not intended to reject--there was no appearance of that purpose in her. The matter became more and more mysterious the longer Miss Grey thought it over. She could get no light upon this mysterious question.