“Yes, that's the answer, I think, most of her acquaintances would give, if they were asked the same question and replied honestly,” said the young girl, as if musing.
“Even Sir William?” suggested Randolph, half smiling, yet wondering at her unlooked-for serious shrewdness as he glanced toward the sofa.
“Yes; but HE wouldn't care. You see, there would be a pair of them.” She stopped with a slight blush, as if she had gone too far, but corrected herself in her former youthful frankness: “You don't mind my saying what I did of her? You're not such a PARTICULAR friend?”
“We both owe a debt of gratitude to your cousin Jack,” said Randolph, in some embarrassment.
“Yes, but YOU feel it and she doesn't. So that doesn't make you friends.”
“But she has taken good care of Captain Dornton's child,” suggested Randolph loyally.
He stopped, however, feeling that he was on dangerous ground. But Miss Eversleigh put her own construction on his reticence, and said,—
“I don't think she cares for it much—or for ANY children.”
Randolph remembered his own impression the only time he had ever seen her with the child, and was struck with the young girl's instinct again coinciding with his own. But, possibly because he knew he could never again feel toward Miss Avondale as he had, he was the more anxious to be just, and he was about to utter a protest against this general assumption, when the voice of Sir William broke in upon them. He was taking his leave—and the opportunity of accompanying Miss Avondale to her lodgings on the way to his hotel. He lingered a moment over his handshaking with Randolph.
“Awfully glad to have met you, and I fancy you're awfully glad to get rid of what they call your 'trust.' Must have given you a beastly lot of bother, eh—might have given you more?”