Her big, sad eyes were fixed on Jack as she shook her head in wonder.
"If one had read that in a book one would never have believed it, would one?"
"And the man Hoggins," said Jack, who did not share her wonder. "He was by way of being an acquaintance of yours, a member of your father's club, wasn't he?"
She knit her brows.
"I don't remember the name, but if he is a very bad character," she said with a little smile, "I should say distinctly that he was a member of father's club! Poor daddy, I don't think he will ever regenerate the East End."
"I don't think he will," agreed Jack heartily. "The question is, whether the East End will ever regenerate him."
A slow smile dawned on her face.
"How unkind!" she said, mockery in her eyes now. "I wonder why you dislike him so. He is so very harmless, really. My dear," she turned to the girl with a gesture of helplessness. "I am afraid that even in this affair Mr. Glover is seeing my sinister influence!"
"You're the most un-sinister person I have ever met, Jean," laughed Lydia, "and Mr. Glover doesn't really think all these horrid things."
"Doesn't he?" said Jean softly, and Jack saw that she was shaking with laughter.
There was a certain deadly humour in the situation which tickled him too, and he grinned.
"I wish to heaven you'd get married and settle down, Miss Briggerland," he said incautiously.
It was her chance. She shook her head, the lips drooped, the eyes again grew moist with the pain she could call to them at will.
"I wish I could," she said in a tone a little above a whisper, "but, Jack, I could never marry you, never!"
She left Jack Glover bereft of speech, totally incapable of arousing so much as a moan.
Lydia, returning from escorting her visitor to the door, saw his embarrassment and checked his impulsive explanation a little coldly.
"I--I believed you when you said it wasn't true, Mr. Glover," she said, and there was a reproach in her tone for which she hated herself afterwards.