"What sort of look? I didn't know you could tell widowers by looking at them."
"Well, I can't exactly describe it, but I know it when I see it. And you know he might easily have been married in England, and we shouldn't know it. Lots of men have been—like that you know—and they don't think it necessary to talk about it."
Nora disliked the idea, she scarcely knew why, but set it down as one of Kitty's fancies. There might be many kinds of tragedy in a man's life. If Mr. Chillingworth had suffered, it seemed to give him a stronger claim on her sympathy.
But Kitty wanted to know where she was going on Christmas evening.
"Oh, I've heard about that," she said, when Nora had told her. "Mr. Waldberg told me about it. He says that Mr. Graeme—you know—was to read at it; he lives in the same house with him, and they are great friends. Hermann says he's the best fellow he ever knew."
Nora had no very high estimate of Waldberg's judgment; still, after Mr. Chillingworth's condemnation, even this tribute was pleasant to hear. But she caught up Kitty at once.
"I didn't know you had got on quite so far as to call Mr. Waldberg, Hermann." she remarked.
"Well, you see the poor fellow is away from home and everybody belonging to him, so he likes to have some one to call him by his old home name. You know Germans have such nice romantic ideas!"
"Kitty, Kitty! You ought really to take care! You don't know what mischief you may do!"
"Oh, he knows all about that!" she said, laughing and coloring, but holding out her finger, on which flashed and sparkled a solitaire diamond. "And look here," she added, holding out, for Nora's inspection, a new acquisition, a ring set with sapphire and pearls. "Isn't this lovely? It was a birthday gift from Harold this morning."