“I think,” Ethel said at last, “I ought to tell Father,” and even now she looked at Hannah for advice, and though she did not ask for it in words, her expression had a familiar appeal and a pathos in its offended bewilderment.
“Don’t be a fool,” Wilfrid said. “The poor man’s got enough worry as it is. A son who runs away—! He doesn’t want to hear about a nephew who has kissed Miss Mole.”
“It was Miss Mole who kissed you.”
“Yes, but I kissed back, and jolly quick! Didn’t you notice?” His speech fell into its provoking drawl. “I call this exceedingly vulgar. Don’t you, Mona Lisa?”
“No,” she said, “nothing seems vulgar to me, not really. There’s something wrong with me, I suppose. It’s funny,” she went on, and she leaned forward eagerly, though she looked at nobody, “it’s funny that it’s so easy to be positive about good things and so difficult about what are called bad ones. And d’you know why I think it is? It’s because the good things exist and the bad ones don’t.”
“Oh, but Miss Mole—” Ethel could not resist a discussion in which she had a sort of professional interest, though her antagonist was Miss Mole, “we know there are bad things like—like deceit.”
“Yes, yes, it has a bad name, but get to know the person, the cause and the circumstances and it may deserve a good one.”
“Then you think I oughtn’t to tell Father?”
“I’m hardly the person to advise you, and this is rather like a nightmare, but I’ll try. Do you mean about the kiss?”
“Not only the kiss,” Ethel muttered, biting her tortured lips.
Ruth’s voice came clearly. “If you do, you’ll have to tell him that Mr. Pilgrim came to tea.”
“Oh, has Mr. Pilgrim been? Did he recite?” Hannah asked, and there was no one in the world who knew her well enough to detect the anxiety under her careless tones.
Ethel turned to Ruth. “Why shouldn’t I tell him?”
“Because Father doesn’t like him.”
“Father doesn’t know him.”
“That won’t make any difference,” Ruth said. “Moley, you told me about your cousin Hilda, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t tell you much.”
“Ah, but you’re going to. So there, Ethel! But of course you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I don’t know who to believe,” Ethel said, blinking away her tears.
“What on earth are you all talking about?” Wilfrid asked.
“And if there’s nothing bad, what’s the use of trying to be good?” Ethel asked.
“It isn’t being good to be a sneak.”
“But how can you help being a sneak if you try to tell the truth?”
“You can hold your tongue.”
“But I’m worried!” Ethel cried. “And what does a little girl like you know about it?”
“More than you do, anyhow!”
“Don’t quarrel, don’t quarrel,” Hannah begged. “This is the queerest conversation I’ve ever heard. Why doesn’t anyone else want to laugh?”
“Because we like listening to you,” Wilfrid said, “and whatever your sins may be, you’ll go to Heaven. They’ll give you all the indulgences you need because they’ll want you in the choir.”
“But I can’t sing a note.”
“Then the choir will go on strike and say they’d rather hear you talking in your lovely voice.”
“Have I got a lovely voice?” Hannah asked.
“Has she?” said Ethel, and Ruth exclaimed: “Oh, Wilfrid, how sickening of you! I thought nobody knew it except me,” and that remark, flattering though it was, seemed to Hannah indicative of the fiercely individual attitude of the Corders towards anything they considered good. They could see trouble in its effect on the family, as they had shown in the case of Howard’s departure, which neither Ethel nor Ruth had mentioned as a personal loss, but they would not share their pleasures.
She had another proof of this in the information Ruth gave her, later, about Mr. Pilgrim’s visit. She had been allowed to have tea with him and Ethel, but, afterwards, Ethel had got rid of her, and Hannah easily imagined her clumsy efforts at tact. “And she needn’t have bothered,” Ruth said. “I didn’t want to stay. I think he’s a horrid man. He smiles too much and his teeth don’t fit. They click, too. And Ethel was so grinny and giggly, till Mr. Pilgrim began talking about you and saying he was sorry to miss you,” and here Ruth paused and looked at Hannah who could not find it in her conscience to ask questions of this child and waited for her next words. “And, of course,” she said reflectively, “you did look specially nice at the party, almost pretty, Moley, when you were talking to Mr. Blenkinsop.”
“What next?” Hannah asked disdainfully. “And I don’t see much use in a face that’s only almost pretty.”
“But it’s so exciting. You don’t know what’s going to happen to it.”
“Well,” said Hannah, “I never thought I should die conceited about my looks and, if they’ve pleased Mr. Pilgrim, I shall also die contented.”
“I don’t know about pleasing him. At first I thought it was that and so did Ethel, and she stopped giggling, but afterwards, when he’d gone, I found out that he’d been more interested in your cousin. I was rather in a muddle about it all, and I told Ethel you had a cousin Hilda when she asked me, and then I rather wished I hadn’t, in case there might be something about her you wouldn’t want people to know. I suppose I ought to have stayed with them all the time.”
“Ought?” Hannah said quickly.
“Yes, and then I should have known why Ethel was so funny when you came in. It wasn’t only kissing Wilfrid, Moley. I didn’t like that myself.”
“You’re rather a goose, aren’t you? And look here, I don’t employ private detectives, and my cousin Hilda is quite a match for Mr. Pilgrim, so please mind your own business in future.”
“It is my business,” Ruth said stubbornly. “If people talk about you and your relations, I shall tell you what they say. Besides, I’m interested. What does Ethel want to
