'Why are you still up?' he asked, avoiding her look as he moved
forward and took a leaning attitude behind an easy-chair.
'Oh, I don't know. Do you want anything?'
There was a pause; then Jasper said in an unsteady voice:
'I am not given to lying, Dora, and I feel confoundedly
uncomfortable about what I said to you early this evening. I
didn't lie in the ordinary sense; it's true enough that I have
never told anyone that my engagement was at an end. But I have
acted as if it were, and it's better I should tell you.'
His sister gazed at him with indignation.
'You have acted as if you were free?'
'Yes. I have proposed to Miss Rupert. How Mrs Lane and that lot
have come to know anything about this I don't understand. I am
not aware of any connecting link between them and the Ruperts, or
the Barlows either. Perhaps there are none; most likely the
rumour has no foundation in their knowledge. Still, it is better
that I should have told you. Miss Rupert has never heard that I
was engaged, nor have her friends the Barlows--at least I don't
see how they could have done.
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