He leaned against the door-post and gazed at his patent leather shoes.
As if with reluctance he said slowly:
“I have.”
“What were they like?”
“Rotten.”
He pronounced the word with the “r” strangled yet protesting, as if he
had rolled his tongue round it, torn it from its place and put it away
somewhere in the recesses of his throat.
“Oh, poor girl!” I moaned.
“That’s why I went up there. She must have seen them and I wished to
assure her they were lies.”
“Did they say anything very awful?”
He shrugged.
“They spoke of her beauty--one said she had a good mezzo voice. But
they were not kind to her, to Mr. Berwick, _very_.”