Ford had been expecting a lecture, once he admitted to what Mrs. Dempsey clearly already thought they'd done. He didn't know whether to be dismayed or relieved when none followed. On the one hand, it saved the immediate pain of having to sit through one while he was still a few feet from the floo and she was still mostly undressed; on the other hand, there was no telling what Mrs. Dempsey was planning to go do now. Maybe the lecture would be forthcoming, once she had gone and confided their secret to someone else. Only time would tell.
The door was still hanging open, gaping to the hallway beyond. He would have moved to shut it, except the girl had said something so quietly that he felt he really had to turn and look at her in order to acknowledge that he'd heard it, and then he saw her face. They'd been together during the Sanditon Hurricane, he recalled. It was the tears in the corners of her eyes that did it, finally bringing back exactly where he knew her from. This was the same expression on her face now, he thought with an acute sense of guilt. As though she suspected she would die.
He had maybe just ruined this girl forever — certainly left her reputation to the mercy of an unfriendly third party — and he felt the full weight of that in his stomach and on his shoulders. "She'd already made up her mind," he mumbled. Maybe that was true, or maybe it wasn't, but either way it didn't make him feel any less miserable about what had just happened.
The door was still hanging open, gaping to the hallway beyond. He would have moved to shut it, except the girl had said something so quietly that he felt he really had to turn and look at her in order to acknowledge that he'd heard it, and then he saw her face. They'd been together during the Sanditon Hurricane, he recalled. It was the tears in the corners of her eyes that did it, finally bringing back exactly where he knew her from. This was the same expression on her face now, he thought with an acute sense of guilt. As though she suspected she would die.
He had maybe just ruined this girl forever — certainly left her reputation to the mercy of an unfriendly third party — and he felt the full weight of that in his stomach and on his shoulders. "She'd already made up her mind," he mumbled. Maybe that was true, or maybe it wasn't, but either way it didn't make him feel any less miserable about what had just happened.
Set by Lady!