“Oh, Moley, that’s not manners!” Ruth expostulated, half laughing in her relief at escape from something much worse than this, but she obeyed Hannah’s significant look at the door, while Ethel moaned piteously, in excuse, “I’m so unhappy.”
Hannah checked a movement of impatience. She knew the unhappiness of a girl could be as poignant as that of a woman, perhaps more poignant, but the doors were still open for the girl and she had time to wander and find what she wanted, while, for the woman, the doors were shut and barred and she had to find, not what she wanted, but what she could get, inside. “What’s the matter?” she asked gently, and Ethel cried, “Oh, Miss Mole, Mr. Pilgrim’s been, and Father was furious with him—about you!”
“How do you know it was about me?”
“Because I—I saw Mr. Pilgrim afterwards, and he told me.”
“Well, it’s very obliging of you to pass on the news,” Hannah said, and she went out of the room to the sound of Ethel’s protestations that her father’s anger was not going to affect her actions.
In the hall, Hannah rubbed her cheeks vigorously and blinked her eyes to rid them of their stiff, glaring feeling. Her indignant, sore anger, too bitter for relief in words, had changed into a lively, almost gay, one, and she knocked at the study door and showed Mr. Corder a face which, he immediately decided, was not the right one for his housekeeper.
He was in a noble state of scorn for Mr. Pilgrim, but he was ready to see suspicious symptoms in Miss Mole and the consciousness that he knew something to her possible detriment and meant to keep that knowledge from her, gave him a sense of power which was expressed in the cold blandness of his manner. “Can I do anything for you?” he asked. She did not look like a guilty person but the guilty were often shameless.
“Yes, please,” Hannah said. “I want to know what Mr. Pilgrim has been telling you.”
This vexed Mr. Corder. He always shrank from a direct attack and his feeling of power was sensibly diminished. “It was a confidential interview, Miss Mole.”
“Of which Ethel knows some of the details.”
“I am not responsible for that.” He did not want to repeat Mr. Pilgrim’s remarks. He had a fear that this woman, who was like no other he had met, would corroborate them, and force him to some action about which he could consult no committee, and he took refuge on that height from which he had addressed Mr. Pilgrim.
“I think I can guarantee that he will say no more. I consider his behaviour unmanly, Miss Mole, and even if I did not doubt the truth of his statements, I should ignore them. We have all sinned, in some way, at some time—”
“Oh, not all of us,” Hannah interpolated, and she tried to look at him admiringly.
“In greater or lesser degree,” he said, “and I, for one, am willing to let bygones be bygones. I judge you as I know you, Miss Mole. I ask you no questions. I wish to hear nothing from you.”
If he had wanted Hannah to tell him everything, this was the way to do it. His condescension was almost more than she could bear. Every feeling of antipathy she had had for him returned in force. She wondered what influence her little property was having on his leniency and his wish to hear nothing from her was the strongest of motives for disobliging him. It would be worth a good deal to see him floundering in the embarrassment of her confession, and she was in a mental condition which craved the satisfaction of desperate measures. She believed that most of her soreness would be healed if she could tell him what she had done, and assure him that she did not care a damn. Yes, if she could use that word it would do her all the good in the world. But after that—what? She had nowhere to go, she had very little money, and even Mrs. Gibson’s house was now closed to her. She could not go there and, wherever she went, she must leave Ruth behind.
The tightness of her body slackened, her hands came together in front of her. “You are very generous,” she said, and some of her pleasure in offering that tribute was lost in her fear that it might be true, but her fear was not great: his generosity would cease when other people became aware of it. “One has one’s family pride, and after all, there wouldn’t be much sense in punishing me because of poor cousin Hilda. I’ve always been friends with her and I always shall be. I haven’t Mr. Pilgrim’s fear of contamination and I have none of his reforming spirit. And I’m very fond of her. There must be some reason why the naughty people are so much nicer than the others, and Hilda is one of the naughty, nice ones. But then, perhaps I’m prejudiced,” she added with a smile.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about,” Robert Corder said with his quick frown.
Hannah’s eyebrows went as high as they could. “You don’t know what I’m talking about? Then what on earth has Mr. Pilgrim been saying to you? Tell me, please, Mr. Corder. I must know.”
Mr. Corder reddened above his beard. “He was talking about you,” he said reluctantly.
“About me? About me? Oh, I see,” she said slowly. “Yes, we’re very much alike. Poor Mr. Pilgrim! How disappointing for him!”
“Why should it be disappointing for him?” Robert Corder asked with an acuteness she had not been prepared to meet.
“He’s
