“An attachment ?”
“An attachment.”
“That you shouldn’t have?”
“That I shouldn’t have.”
“A passion?”
“A passion.”
“Shared?”
“Ah thank goodness, no!”
Mrs. Dyott continued to gaze. “The object’s unaware—?”
“Utterly.”
Mrs. Dyott turned it over. “Are you sure?”
“Sure.”
“That’s what you call your decency? But isn’t it,” Mrs. Dyott asked, “rather his?”
“Dear no. It’s only his good fortune.”
Mrs. Dyott laughed. “But yours, darling—your good fortune: where does THAT come in?”
“Why, in my sense of the romance of it.”
“The romance of what? Of his not knowing?”
“Of my not wanting him to. If I did”—Maud had touchingly worked it out—”where would be my honesty?”
The inquiry, for an instant, held her friend, yet only, it seemed, for a stupefaction that was almost amusement. “Can you want or not want as you like? Where in the world, if you don’t want, is your romance?”
Mrs. Blessingbourne still wore her smile, and she now, with a light gesture that matched it, just touched the region of her heart. “There!”
Her companion admiringly marvelled. “A lovely place for it, no doubt!—but not quite a place, that I can see, to make the sentiment a relation.”
“Why not? What more is required for a relation for me?”
“Oh all sorts of things, I should say! And many more, added to those, to make it one for the person you mention.”
“Ah that I don’t pretend it either should be or CAN be. I only speak for myself.”
This was said in a manner that made Mrs. Dyott, with a visible mixture of impressions, suddenly turn away. She indulged in a vague movement or two, as if to look for something; then again found herself near her friend, on whom with the same abruptness, in fact with a strange sharpness, she conferred a kiss that might have represented either her tribute to exalted consistency or her idea of a graceful close of the discussion. “You deserve that one should speak FOR you!”
Her companion looked cheerful and secure. “How CAN you without knowing—?”
“Oh by guessing! It’s not—?”
But that was as far as Mrs. Dyott could get. “It’s not,” said Maud, “any one you’ve ever seen.”
“Ah then I give you up!”
And Mrs. Dyott conformed for the rest of Maud’s stay to the spirit of this speech. It was made on a Saturday night, and Mrs. Blessingbourne remained till the Wednesday following, an interval during which, as the return of fine weather was confirmed by the Sunday, the two ladies found a wider range of action. There were drives to be taken, calls made, objects of interest seen at a distance; with the effect of much easy talk and still more easy silence. There had been a question of Colonel Voyt’s probable return on the Sunday, but the whole time passed without a sign from him, and it was merely mentioned by Mrs. Dyott, in explanation, that he must have been suddenly called, as he was so liable to be, to town. That this in fact was what had happened he made clear to her on Thursday afternoon, when, walking over again late, he found her alone. The consequence of his Sunday letters had been his taking, that day, the 4.15. Mrs. Voyt had gone back on Thursday, and he now, to settle on the spot the question of a piece of work begun at his place, had rushed down for a few hours in anticipation of the usual collective move for the week’s end. He was to go up again by the late train, and had to count a little—a fact accepted by his hostess with the hard pliancy of practice—his present happy moments. Too few as these were, however, he found time to make of her an inquiry or two not directly bearing on their situation. The first was a recall of the question for which Mrs. Blessingbourne’s entrance on the previous Saturday had arrested her answer. Had that lady the idea of anything between them?
“No. I’m sure. There’s one idea she has got,” Mrs. Dyott went on; “but it’s quite different and not so very wonderful.”
“What then is it?”
“Well, that she’s herself in love.”
Voyt showed his interest. “You mean she told you?”
“I got it out of her.”
He showed his amusement. “Poor thing! And with whom?”
“With you.”
His surprise, if the distinction might be made, was less than his wonder. “You got that out of her too?”
