“He has gone; he will never trouble you any more, and I hope you will forgive him, dear, for my sake. Poor old Durant, he has always looked after me, and bullied me. When I was at Eton first, I was his fag. I don’t think he can forget that.”
“I daresay not,” said Nancy, “he thinks he should always have the upper hand. He thinks you should never have any friends but of his choosing. And then he will go and tell stories about us all to your father and mother.”
“I don’t think, perhaps, you do him quite justice,” said Arthur, musing, with a flush on his face. “Old Durant is not like that. The worst he has to say, he will say to yourself, not behind your back; and he will not gossip about you.”
“He is free to gossip as much as ever he likes, so far as I am concerned; but I don’t like those sort of people--and give into them I would not--not for the world!”
“Mr. Durant is gone, is he?” said Sarah Jane, in a voice of dismay. “You are so selfish you two! What harm was he doing? I am sure he was very nice. What did you send him away for? It is so like you, Nancy, blazing up into one of your fits, and never thinking of spoiling other people’s fun--what you always do.”
“Hillo!” said Arthur, half amused, half angry, “what has Durant to do with other people’s fun? He is not at all a funny person so far as I can see.”
“Oh! he may not show it to you, but Mr. Durant is very good company,” said Sarah Jane with a toss of her head. “He is not so dreadfully ancient that you should call him Old Durant; and I am sure if he likes to come back here, I shall be very glad for one. And I think he will too,” said the girl, elevating her foolish but not unpretty nose. It was of the tip-tilted order, and could express a great deal of half-saucy piquant self-confidence. Arthur stared at her blankly with a painful sort of offence coming over him. It made him quite unreasonably angry that this foolish girl should suppose that Durant--_Durant_, of all people in the world! was interested in her pink prettiness--the idea quite shocked him. He whispered to Nancy, in the corner, a little admonition.
“You should not let that girl talk so,” he said. “To hear her chatter of Durant! It is like a magpie and an eagle. You, who have so much more sense, you should not let her do so. It makes one angry in spite of oneself.”