“Sha’n’t have any supper, Jue, thank you.  You won’t mind my lighting a cigar—­somebody’s been smoking here already.  And what’s the least poisonous claret you’ve got?”

“Well, I declare!” she said, but she got him the wine all the same, and watched him light his cigar:  then she took the easy-chair opposite.

“Tell us about your young man, Jue,” he said.  “Girls always like to talk about that.”

“Do they?” she said.  “Not to boys.”

“I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight.  I am thinking of getting married.”

“So I hear,” she remarked quietly.

Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on getting his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather startled him.  “What have you heard?” he said abruptly.

“Oh, nothing—­the ordinary stupid gossip,” she said, though she was watching him rather closely.  “Are you going to stay with us for the next fortnight?”

“No, I have got rooms at the Queen’s.”

“I thought so.  One might have expected you, however, to stay with your relations when you came to Penzance.”

“Oh, that’s all gammon, Jue,” he said:  “you know very well your father doesn’t care to have any one stay with you—­it’s too much bother.  You’ll have quite enough of me while I am in Penzance.”

“Shall we have anything of you?” she said with apparent indifference.  “I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma had already come here.”

“And what if they have?” he said with unnecessary fierceness.

“Well, Harry,” she said, “you needn’t get unto a temper about it, but people will talk, you know; and they say that your attentions to that young lady are rather marked, considering that she is engaged to be married; and you have induced your mother to make a pet of her.  Shall I go on?”

“No, you needn’t,” he said with a strong effort to overcome his anger.  “You’re quite right—­people do talk, but they wouldn’t talk so much if other people didn’t carry tales.  Why, it isn’t like you, Jue!  I thought you were another sort.  And about this girl, of all girls in the world!”

He got up and began walking about the room, and talking with considerable vehemence, but no more in anger.  He would tell her what cause there was for this silly gossip.  He would tell her who this girl was who had been lightly mentioned.  And in his blunt, frank, matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations were, and then plainly asked her if she could condemn him.

Miss Juliott was touched:  “Sit down, Harry:  I have wanted to talk to you, and I don’t mean to heed any gossip.  Sit down, please—­you frighten me by walking up and down like that.  Now, I’m going to talk common sense to you, for I should like to be your friend; and your mother is so easily led away by any sort of sentiment that she isn’t likely to have seen with my eyes.  Suppose that this Miss Rosewarne—­”