He discovered Greenacre, who no longer slept at the Bilboes, but in
a house of like cosiness and obscurity a little farther west; told
him of the brilliant ingenuity with which he had escaped from a
galling complication, and received his promise of assistance in
strengthening the plot. Greenacre wrote to Polly that very night,
and on the morrow conversed with her, emphasizing by many devices
the secrecy and importance of their interview. Would Polly engage to
give him the benefit of her shrewdness, her knowledge of life, in
his search for the man Clover? His air of professional eagerness,
his nods, winks, and flattery so wrought upon the girl that she
ceased to harbour suspicion. Her primitive mind, much fed on penny
fiction, accepted all she was told, and in the consciousness of
secret knowledge affecting lords and ladies she gave up without a
sigh the air-drawn vision of being herself actually a member of an
aristocratic family.
At the same time she thought of Gammon with disappointment, with
vague irritation, and began all but to wish that she had never
weakly pardoned him for his insulting violence at Mrs.
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