'Supposing they were! And she as good as engaged to Ted Ritchie!' retorted Julia.
She was determined to put her case bluntly, so as to extort her sister's opinion all the more quickly.
But instead of evoking any sharp denial, as she hoped to do, a sudden light seemed to fall on Mrs. Claude.
'Well, now, that explains what has begun to puzzle me,' she said slowly; and at these words poor Julia's heart fell.
'What has been puzzling you, Nell?'
'The sort of fast friendship there is between Stella and Dr. Langdale, without any approach to love-making.'
'Without any approach to love-making!' echoed Julia bitterly. 'Well, Nell, you must be a greenhorn to be taken in by such stuff. Why, you cannot see the two together without knowing at once they are playing at being friends; but it's about the shabbiest disguise I ever saw.'
'Oh, I know how you look at it, Julia,' said Mrs. Claude, with a quiet smile. 'You only see part of the play, and the other part you put together all endways.'
'Well, I see only part, but enough is as good as a feast, they say. Why, last Thursday when I was over there I saw them meeting at the passion-flower bridge, and it took them a solid hour to get from there to the house! And yet till Stella appeared you know the sort of deadly calm the Doctor always maintained to young ladies. Indeed, Mrs. Waring felt certain there was something behind it all—that he was privately married, or a woman-hater, or something.'
'Oh, we all know Mrs. Waring's talent for working out patterns for other people's lives,' said Mrs. Claude, with a superior little smile which Julia found very trying. 'You see,' she went on, with the combined experience of one recently married and travelled, 'people in the Bush think, as a rule, that if two people like Stella and Dr. Langdale have long interesting talks, it must somehow mean love-making. So it does in ninety-eight cases, but they are the ninety-ninth, and with them it doesn't. And when you see a little more of the world you'll find there are plenty more like them. Why, when we were at Geneva we met an American lady and her mother. I suppose I ought to name the mother first, but she was really as much in the background as an extra dress-basket. Well, the daughter was not young, and there was a countryman of hers, the Consul there, who had been her intimate friend for fourteen years. During all that time when they are apart they write long letters to each other every other week.'