"I shouldn't want to blame her if she gave Miriam her chance."
"That's what I've always said. And if Miriam had only wanted to, she could have been—well, almost anybody. She had offers and offers in Washington, and in England there was a Sir Somebody-or-other who asked her two or three times over. He married an actress in the end—and dear mamma thought Miriam must be crazy not to have taken him while he was to be had. Dear mamma said it would have been such a good thing for me to have some one like Miriam—who was under obligations to us, do you see?—in a good social position abroad."
"But Miriam didn't see it in that way?"
"She didn't see it in any way. She's terribly exasperating in some respects, although she's such a dear. Poor mamma used to be very tried about her—and she so ill—and my stepfather going blind—and everything. If Miriam had only been in a good social position abroad it would have been a place for me to go—instead of having no home—like this."
There was something so touching in her manner that he found it difficult not to offer her a home there and then; but the shadows were marching out into daylight, and he must watch the procession to the end.
"It seems to have been very inconsiderate of Miriam," he said. "But why do you suppose she acted so?"
"Dear mamma thought she was in love with some one—some one we didn't know anything about—but I never believed that. In the first place, she didn't know any one we didn't know anything about—not before she went to Washington with Lady Bonchurch. And besides, she couldn't be in love with any one without my knowing it, now could she?"
"I suppose not; unless she made up her mind she wouldn't tell you."
"Oh, I shouldn't want her to tell me. I should see it for myself. She wouldn't tell me, in any case—not till things had gone so far that—but I never noticed the least sign of it, do you see? and I've a pretty sharp eye for that sort of thing at all times. There was just one thing. Dear mamma used to say that for a while she used to do a good deal of moping in a little studio she had, up in the hills near our house—but you couldn't tell anything from that. I've gone and moped there myself when I've felt I wanted a good cry—and I wasn't in love with any one."
There was a long silence, during which he sat grave, motionless, reflecting. Now and then he placed his extinguished cigarette to his lips, with the mechanical motion of a man forgetful of time and place and circumstance.