'No. You have a trouble, and I'd give anything to take it away.'
Madame Frabelle looked at her with sympathy, pressed her hand, then looked away.
Edith knew she was looking away out of delicacy. Delicacy about what? It was an effort not to laugh; but, oddly enough, it was also an effort not to feel secretly miserable. She wondered, though, what she was unhappy about. She need not have troubled, for Madame Frabelle was quite willing to tell her. She was, indeed, willing to tell anyone anything. Perhaps that was the secret of her charm.
CHAPTER IV
It was utterly impossible, literally out of the question, that Madame Frabelle could know anything about the one trouble, the one danger, that so narrowly escaped being almost a tragedy, in Edith's life.
It was three years since Bruce, always inclined to vague, mild flirtations, had been positively carried off his feet, and literally taken away by a determined young art student, with red hair, who had failed to marry a friend of his. While Edith, with the children, was passing the summer holidays at Westgate, Bruce had sent her the strangest of letters, informing her that he and Mavis Argles could not live without one another, and had gone to Australia together, and imploring her to divorce him. The complication was increased by the fact that at that particular moment the most charming man Edith had ever met, Aylmer Ross, that eloquent and brilliant barrister, had fallen in love with her, and she had become considerably attracted to him. Her pride had been hurt at Bruce's conduct, but she had certainly felt it less bitterly, in one way, because she was herself so much fascinated by Aylmer and his devotion.
* * * * *
But Edith had behaved with cool courage and real unselfishness. She felt certain that Brace's mania would not last, and that if it did he would be miserable. Strangely, then, she had declined to divorce him, and waited. Her prophecy turned out correct, and by the time they arrived at their journey's end the red-haired lady was engaged to a commercial traveller whom she met on the boat. By then Bruce and she were equally convinced that in going to Australia they had decidedly gone too far.
* * * * *
So Brace came back, and Edith forgave him. She made one condition only (which was also her one revenge), that he should never speak about it, never mention the subject again.