"And yet," said Mrs. Bobby, who had taken the seat opposite her and was watching her thoughtfully, "you didn't seem to care enough about it to come in to listen to your friend this afternoon."
Elizabeth blushed. "I could hear him in the other room," she said.
"Where, besides, you seemed to be very well entertained," said Mrs. Bobby, serenely. "Still, I don't think it was nice of you. It is hard on the poor man, after flirting with him in the country, to treat him so indifferently in town."
"I didn't flirt with him," said Elizabeth, but her protest was faint, and seemed purely perfunctory. In fact, she was not sorry that Mrs. Bobby had adopted this theory, realizing that a half-truth may sometimes be the most effective barrier to a knowledge of the whole.
"Don't tell me anything so wildly improbable, my dear," said Mrs. Bobby. "My knowledge of human nature will not allow me to believe that a pretty girl and a handsome young singer, thrown together for weeks in the country, as I believe you were, did not indulge in a tremendous flirtation. But seriously, Elizabeth, I am glad that it went no further, and that you have recovered so easily. For I can imagine that you lost your heart to him a little. Confess, Elizabeth, didn't you?"
"Perhaps I did," said Elizabeth, staring immovably into the fire "but one gets over such things, you know."
"Indeed one does," said Mrs. Bobby. "I was desperately in love at seventeen, and cried my eyes out when they made me give the man up; and yet had I married him, I should have been the most wretched being in the world, instead of a much happier woman than I deserve to be, thanks to a husband far too good for me. (But that, dear, is between ourselves. I always try to make Bobby think it's the other way.) But imagine how dreadful it would have been, if I had had my own foolish way at seventeen. And so I am glad, Elizabeth, that you have got over your penchant for this young artist, who is good-looking, and sings well, and all that; but who is—even if I knew anything about him, which I don't—quite the last man I should like you to marry."
Elizabeth's face was turned away. "I don't know," she said in a low voice, "why you think of that."
"Oh, I was only speculating on what might have been," said Mrs. Bobby, lightly. "I know," she went on after a moment, stealing a furtive glance at the girl's averted face, "I know the sort of man I should like you to marry, Elizabeth. He must be older than you, considerably older; of a serious disposition, with a strong will, stronger than yours, for you might be perhaps a little hard to manage; fond of music and fond of books; rich, and with a good position of course; and—and I should like him to be every bit as nice as Bobby, if such a thing is possible."
Elizabeth turned her white face towards her friend. "And you think," she said, in a low, stifled voice, "that I should come up to the standard of a paragon like that?"