"N-no; not exactly. What I was going to say is that since—since there's nobody but Hugh—you won't be offended with me, will you?—I won't step in—"
It was my turn to be enthusiastic.
"But that's what I call sporting!"
"Oh no, it isn't. I haven't seen Hugh for two or three years, and whatever little thing there was—"
I strained forward across my desk. I know my eyes must have been enormous.
"But was there—was there ever—anything?"
"Oh no; not at all. He—he never noticed me. I was only in the school-room, and he was a grown-up young man. If his father and mine hadn't been great friends—and got plans into their heads—Laura and Janet used to poke fun at me about it. And then we rode together and played tennis and golf, and so—but it was all—just nothing. You know how silly a girl of seventeen can be. It was nonsense. I only want you to know, in case he ever says anything about it—but then he never will—men see so little—I only want you to know that that's the way I feel about it—and that I didn't come over here to— I don't say that if in your case there had been any one else—but I see there isn't—Ethel Rossiter is wrong—and so if I can do anything for Hugh and yourself with the Brokenshires. I—I want you to make use of me."
With a dignity oddly in contrast to this stammering confession, which was what it was, she rose to her feet as Mrs. Billing came back to us.
The hook-nosed face was somber. Curiosity as to other people's business had for once given place in the old lady's thoughts to meditations that turned inward. I suppose that in some perverse fashion of her own she loved her daughter, and suffered from her unhappiness. There was enough in this room to prove to her how cruelly mere self-seeking can overreach itself and ruin what it tries to build.
"Well, what are you talking about?" she snapped, as she approached us. "Hugh Brokenshire, I'll bet a dime."