“But after your husband’s death?”
“Then it would have looked odd, surely, to have suddenly announced that I had a brother, as nobody had ever heard of him before.”
“You know, Norah, I always think honesty the best policy.”
“I started with the same notion, but I found out it did not do,” returned Mrs. O’Hara sadly. “All the women are against me now, because they say I am so gushing that I talk about the first thing that comes into my head, and so lead men away from their wives.”
“Yes; I have heard you accused of that, certainly,” interrupted Colonel Dacre, remembering the accusation Lady Gwendolyn had made. “There was Percy Gray, for instance.”
Mrs. O’Hara blushed vividly.
“As you say that honesty is the best policy, I will admit I did behave rather unwisely there. The fact was, Lady Maria brought what happened entirely on herself. Percy Gray hadn’t the faintest idea of falling in love with me, until she put it into his head; but—would you believe it?—when he was going to Norway fishing, she accused him of intending to elope with me. The consequence was that he couldn’t bear Lady Maria to tell a falsehood, and he came off at once and asked me to put her in the right.”
“And what did you do?”
“Ask Percy,” she returned dryly. “You know they used to say in the regiment that Norah O’Hara liked a piece of fun as well as anybody; but she’d make you remember it if you went an inch too far. And, to do them justice, our boys were all gentlemen.”
“Nevertheless, you weren’t always wise, Norah. I used to wonder often that Jack stood it.”