His eyes had a curious far away look. Then he seemed to come back to the present.
"All the same I've felt, somehow, that a foreign title, over here, wouldn't do--rather snobbish..." He laughed with a shade of nervousness.
"Quite right." Miss Uniacke nodded. She liked the man more and more. But, despite her careless attitude toward the secret he shared with her, her old heart warmed at the thought of this splendid match for the girl she loved.
"You won't tell her? You'll keep it dark!"
She smiled the harshness out of the words.
"All the same," she went on, "I think you ought to tell her mother. I don't approve of Mary myself--I think her conduct to her children simply shocking----" she frowned again--"the secrecy--and this sudden marriage! Still, she brought Jill into the world--it's _her_ daughter, not mine. It's paying her back in her own coin ... but I _know_ I ought to stop this folly!"
"But you won't?" His voice was very earnest. "Look here, Miss Uniacke. She's never given a thought to Jill--or Roddy either, latterly. She's bringing a penniless, idle chap into her home to live with her children. She'll have to support him--you know that? At their expense! For, after all, it's Colonel Uniacke's money, you know, that she holds in trust for the next generation. It means a cruel time for them under the thumb of that rotter, Stephen. On a slender income, deprived of their rights and shadowed by this Suffrage nonsense.
"Think of Jill, living with Stephen?--and Roddy--a schoolboy, in _his_ hands...!
"Instead of which, here am I--luckily a rich man; able to give the boy a chance, and Jill ... pretty well all she wants!
"I'd just like you to see some pearls I've got for her in the Roman bank"--he threw his head back and laughed boyishly, with a note of triumph--"They'd make Stephen's mouth water--damn the chap!--I beg your pardon!"
But Miss Uniacke smiled grimly; forgetful of the listening parrot.
"I can't bear to think of Jill for a day in the house with that man. That's why I'm doing this, entirely, to get her away before he returns. Can't you guess what it will save her? The bitterness of seeing him there, ruling in her father's place, in the old home, where he lived..."
"Stop!" Miss Uniacke grasped his arm--"I can't stand it!--It's not fair. Edward..." She choked on the name.