Marjory leant an arm on the back of the chair, looking down into Maggie Dennison's face.
"I will stay," she said softly, ignoring everything else, and then she swiftly stooped and kissed Maggie's cheek.
Mrs. Dennison shivered and smiled, and, detaining the girl's head, most graciously returned her caress. Mrs. Dennison was forgiving everything; by forgiveness it might be that she could buy of Marjory forgetfulness.
There was a ring at the door. Marjory looked through the window.
"It's Mr. Loring," she said in a whisper.
Maggie Dennison smiled—graciously again.
"It's very kind of him to come so soon," said she.
"Shall I go?"
"Go? No, child—unless you want to. You know him too. And we've no secrets, Tom Loring and I."
Tom Loring had mounted the hill very slowly. The giving of that "piece of his mind" seemed not altogether easy. He might paint poor Harry's forlorn state; Mrs. Dennison would be politely concerned and politely sceptical about it. He might tell her again—as he had told her before—that Willie Ruston was a knave and a villain, and she might laugh or be angry, as her mood was; but she would not believe. Or he might upbraid her for folly or for worse; and this was what he wished to do. Would she listen? Probably—with a smile on her lips and mocking little compliments on his friendly zeal and fatherly anxiety. Or she might flash out on him, and call his charge an insult, and drive him away; and a word from her would turn poor old Harry into his enemy. Decidedly his task was no easy one.