But his protest could not
soften the old lady's convinced hostility. "You ask his aunt," she ended
vindictively, and Jimmy was too timid to suggest that enquiries in such a
quarter were not the usual way of forming a judgment on rising statesmen.
Moreover he had no opportunity, for Miss Quisante did not come to
Henstead; her explanation showed the mixture of malice and devotion which
was her usual attitude towards Sandro.
"I'd give my ears to come," she had told May, "to see the fun and hear
Sandro. But I'm old and ugly and scrubby, and Sandro won't want me. I'm
not a swell like you and your sister. I should do him harm, not good.
He'd be ashamed of me--oh, that'd only amuse me. But I'd best not come.
Write to me, my dear, and send me all his speeches."
"I wish you'd come. I want you to talk to," May said.
"Talk to your sister!" jeered Aunt Maria; it was nothing less than a
jeer, for she knew very well that May could not and would not talk to
Fanny.
One thing the Quisante people (as Mrs. Baxter called them) found out
before they had been long in Henstead, and this was the important and
delicate nature of anything and everything that touched or affected Mr.
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