Christine looked a little doubtful.
"The boy's all right, and Sibylla's quite well," she answered.
"But mamma said Mrs. Raymore hinted——"
"Well, Sibylla wouldn't believe the London man, you see. She thought that he—that he'd been persuaded to say she needn't have the operation she wanted to have, and that they meant to—— Well, really, Anna, I can't go into details. It's quite medical, my dear, and I can't express myself discreetly. Anyhow Sibylla made a grievance of it, you know, and relations were a little strained, I think."
"Oh, well, I suppose that's over now, since everything's gone right, Mrs. Fanshaw?"
"It ought to be," said Christine, shy of asserting the positive fact. "But very often fusses about nothing do just as much harm as fusses about something big. It's the way one looks at them."
"Yes, I ought to know that, living in our house," remarked Anna Selford.
"You do give your parents away so!" Christine complained, with a smile in which pity was mingled.
The pity, however, was not for the betrayed, but for the traitor. Anna's premature knowingness and the suggestion of hardness it carried with it were the result of a reaction against the atmosphere of her home, against the half-real gush and the spasmodic emotionality of the family circle. In this revolt truth asserted itself, but sweetness suffered, and freshness lost its bloom. Christine was sorry when that sort of thing happened to young girls. But there it was. Anna was not the ingénue, and it was no good treating her as if she were.
"I'm really half glad you don't live in this house. I'm sure John and I couldn't bear the scrutiny—not just now, anyhow." She answered Anna's questioning eyes by going on: "Oh, it's terrible, my dear. We've no money—now, really, don't repeat that! And John's full of business worries. It's positively so bad that I have to try to be amiable about it!"