Blandamer loaded--simply loaded--that
pert and good-for-nothing girl with presents; that even the young
architect was forced to change his lodgings by such disreputable
goings-on. People wondered how Miss Joliffe and her niece had the
effrontery to show themselves at church on Sundays; the younger
creature, at least, must have _some_ sense of shame left, for she never
ventured to exhibit in _public_ either the fine dresses or the jewellery
that her lover gave her.

Such stories came to Westray's ears, and stirred in him the modicum of
chivalry which leavens the lump of most men's being. He was still
smarting under his repulse, but he would have felt himself disgraced if
he had allowed the scandal to pass unchallenged, and he rebutted it with
such ardour that people shrugged their shoulders, and hinted that there
had been something between _him_, too, and Anastasia.

Clerk Janaway was inclined to take a distressingly opportunist and
matter-of-fact view of the question. He neither reprobated nor
defended. In his mind the Divine right of peers was firmly established.
So long as they were rich and spent their money freely, we should not
be too particular. They were to be judged by standards other than those
of common men; for his part, he was glad they had got in place of an old
curmudgeon a man who would take an interest in the Church, and spend
money on the place and the people. If he took a fancy to a pretty face,
where was the harm? 'Twas nothing to the likes of them, best let well
alone; and then he would cut short the churchwarden's wailings and godly
lamentations by "decanting" on the glories of Fording, and the boon it
was to the countryside to have the place kept up once more.

"Clerk Janaway, your sentiments do you no credit," said the pork-butcher
on one such occasion, for he was given to gossip with the sexton on
terms of condescending equality. "I have seen Fording myself, having
driven there with the Carisbury Field Club, and felt sure it must be a
source of temptation if not guarded against. That one man should live
in such a house is an impiety; he is led to go about like
Nebuchadnezzar, saying: `Is not this great Babylon that I have
builded?'"

"_He_ never builded it," said the clerk with some inconsequence; "'twere
builded centuries ago. I've heard 'tis that old no one don't know _who_
builded it. Your parents was Dissenters, Mr Joliffe, and never taught
you the Catechism when you was young