In my opinion she's not too strong in the head - and a thing like this might send her completely off her onion."
I took a sudden resolution.
I had to know something.
"Tell me, Miss Griffith, was it you who persuaded Megan to return home yesterday?"
"Well, I wouldn't say exactly persuaded."
I stuck to my guns. "But you did say something to her?"
Aimйe Griffith planted her feet firmly and stared me in the eyes. She was, just slightly, on the defensive. She said:
"It's no good - that young woman shirking her responsibility.
She's young and she doesn't know how tongues wag, so I felt it my duty to give her a hint."
"Tongues -?" I broke off because I was too angry to go on.
Aimйe Griffith continued with that maddeningly complacent confidence in herself which was her chief characteristic:
"Oh, I dare say you don't hear all the gossip that goes around.
I do!
I know what people are saying.
Mind you, I don't for a minute think there's anything in it - not for a minute!
But you know what people are - if they can say something ill-natured, they do!
And it's rather hard lines on the girl when she's got her living to earn."
"Her living to earn?" I said, puzzled.
Aimйe went on:
"It's a difficult position for her, naturally. And I think she did the right thing.
I mean, she couldn't go off at a moment's notice and leave the children with no one to look after them.
She's been splendid - absolutely splendid.
I say so to everybody!
But there it is, it's an invidious position, and people will talk."
"Who are you talking about?" I asked.
"Elsie Holland, of course," said Aimйe Griffith impatiently. "In my opinion, she's a thoroughly nice girl and has only been doing her duty."
"And what are people saying?"
Aimйe Griffith laughed. It was, I thought, rather an unpleasant laugh.
"They're saying that she's already considering the possibility of becoming Mrs. Symmington No. 2 - that she's all out to console the widower and make herself indispensable."
"But," I said, shocked, "Mrs. Symmington's only been dead a week!"
Aimйe Griffith shrugged her shoulders.
"Of course. It's absurd! But you know what people are!
The Holland girl is young and she's good-looking - that's enough.
And mind you, being a nursery governess isn't much of a prospect for a girl.
I wouldn't blame her if she wanted a settled home and a husband and was playing her cards accordingly.
"Of course," she went on. "Poor Dick Symmington hasn't the least idea of all this!
He's still completely knocked out by Mona Symmington's death.
But you know what men are!
If the girl is always there, making him comfortable, looking after him, being obviously devoted to the children - well, he gets to be dependent on her."
I said quietly,
"So you do think that Elsie Holland is a designing hussy?"
Aimйe Griffith flushed.
"Not at all.
I'm sorry for the girl - with people saying nasty things!
That's why I more or less told Megan that she ought to go home.
It looks better than having Dick Symmington and the girl alone in the house."
I began to understand things.
Aimйe Griffith gave her jolly laugh.
"You're shocked, Mr. Burton, at hearing what our gossipping little town thinks.
I can tell you this - they always think the worst!"