"But what would Miss Hildreth say to that?" asked the girl, sharply, and looking up so quickly as to catch the sudden frown of annoyance that spread over Mr. Tremain's face at the mention of Patricia's name.
"Ah, Miss Hildreth," he replied, with assumed carelessness. "I had not taken her into consideration."
"And yet Miss Hildreth is not one to be left unconsidered?" said Miss James, questioningly. "She is not one to be easily passed over." Then, with a sudden change of manner, she added: "You have known Miss Hildreth a long time, have you not, Mr. Tremain?"
Philip looked down at her a little startled and surprised. Was she laughing at him—this pale, quiet, almost insignificant girl—or mocking him? Surely the subject of his and Patricia's broken engagement had been public property too long to have escaped her knowledge. Was it impertinence or ignorance that dictated the question? But Miss James's face was placid and mildly interested as she looked up at him with a little smile, and waited for him to speak.
"Oh, yes, I have known Miss Hildreth for some years," he replied, shortly; and then with an abrupt laugh: "but I have not seen her for almost as long as I have known her."
"Ah," said Miss James, meditatively, "she has been abroad for ten years, and ten years makes such a difference in one's knowledge of another. Only think what might not happen in ten years!"
"Apparently Miss Hildreth's experiences have been more or less narrow," answered Philip, annoyed that the conversation should have turned upon Patricia, and yet unable to keep from discussing her.
"Oh, do you think so?" asked Miss James, with quite a look of surprised inquiry in her eyes. "To be sure you ought to know; but do you think she—any woman—could come back quite unchanged after ten years abroad?"
There was so much of veiled controversy in her tones that Philip at once found himself looking at the matter from her point of view, and debating his own question with a decided negative bias.
"What do you mean?" he said at last, after a moment's delay. "What do you think are some of the experiences that may have come in Miss Hildreth's way—or any woman's—during ten years' absence abroad?"