A girl in her position would be crazy to invite suspicion by
doing the things they say she is doing--"
"Don't, Mrs. Fane, please, don't!" stammered Eileen; "I--I really can't
listen. I simply will not!" Then bewildered, hurt, and blindly confused
as she was, the instinct to defend flashed up--though from what she was
defending him she did not realise: "It is utterly untrue!" she exclaimed
hotly--"all that yo--all that _they_ say!--whoever they are--whatever
they mean. I cannot understand it--I don't understand, and I will not!
Nor will _he_!" she added with a scornful conviction that disconcerted
Rosamund; "for if you knew him as I do, Mrs. Fane, you would never,
never have spoken as you have."
Mrs. Fane relished neither the naive rebuke nor the intimation that her
own acquaintance with Selwyn was so limited; and least of all did she
relish the implied intimacy between this red-haired young girl and
Captain Selwyn.
"Dear Miss Erroll," she said blandly, "I spoke as I did only to assure
you that I, also, disregard such malicious gossip--"
"But if you disregard it, Mrs.
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