"Most people aren't father," Mrs. Rossiter contented herself with replying, still occupied with her tress of hair.
It was the confidential hour of the morning in her big chintzy room. The maid having departed, I had been answering notes and was still sitting at the desk. It was the first time she had broached the subject in the four days which had been to me a period of so much restlessness. Wondering at this detachment, I had the boldness to question her.
"Doesn't it seem important to you?"
She threw me a glance over her shoulder, turning back to the mirror at once. "What have I got to do with it? It's father's affair—and Hugh's."
"And mine, too, I suppose?" I hazarded, interrogatively.
To this she said nothing. Her silence gave me to understand what so many other little things impressed upon me—that I didn't count. What Hugh did or didn't do was a matter for the Brokenshires to feel and for J. Howard Brokenshire to deal with. Ethel Rossiter herself was neither for me nor against me. I was her nursery governess, and useful as an unofficial companion-secretary. As long as it was not forbidden she would keep me in that capacity; when the order came she would send me away. As for anything I had to suffer, that was my own lookout. Hugh would be managed by his father, and from that fate there was no appeal. There was nothing, therefore, to worry Mrs. Rossiter. She could dismiss the whole matter, as she presently did, to discuss her troubles over the rival attentions of Mr. Millinger and Mr. Scott, and to protest against their making her so conspicuous. She had the kindness to say, however, just as she was leaving the house for Bailey's Beach:
"I don't talk to you about this affair of Hugh's because I really don't see much of father. It's his business, you see, and nothing for me to interfere with. With that woman there I hardly ever go to their house, and he doesn't often come here. Her mother's with them, too, just now—that's old Mrs. Billing—a harpy if ever there was one—and with all the things people are saying! If father only knew! But, of course, he'll be the last one to hear it."
She was getting into her car by this time and I seized no more; but at lunch I had a few minutes in which to bring my searchings of heart before Larry Strangways.
It was not often we took this repast alone with the children, but it had to happen sometimes. Mrs. Rossiter had telephoned from Bailey's that she had accepted the invitation of some friends and we were not to expect her. We should lunch, however, she informed me, in the breakfast loggia, where the open air would act as chaperon and insure the necessary measure of propriety.
So long as Broke and Gladys were present we were as demure as if we had met by chance in the restaurant car of a train. With the coffee the children begged to be allowed to play with the dogs on the grass, which left us for a few minutes as man and woman.