Shall we talk of something else ?" "Certainly," said Scarfe, startled at her decided tone.

He had laid his plan for a little revelation, and it disconcerted him to see it knocked on the head like this.
However, just then he was not in the humour for making himself obnoxious to Miss Atherton, of whom, being a susceptible youth, he was decidedly enamoured.

It was a deprivation, certainly, to find his tongue thus unexpectedly tied with regard to Jeffreys, of whose stay at Wildtree he had calculated on making very short work.
The one comfort was, that there was little enough danger of her seeing in the ill-favoured Bolsover cad anything which need make him--Scarfe-- jealous.

Doubtless she took a romantic interest in this librarian; many girls have whims of that sort.

But the idea of her preferring him to the smart Oxford hero was preposterous.
Jeffreys would still believe in the sword of Damocles which hung above him, and the time might come when Raby would cease to stand between him and his Nemesis..