'I don't wonder at it if she takes up people like Mick. Mrs. Wylie met her near the cemetery the other day, and she watched her go into it with a basket of flowers. What does she do that for?'
'She weeded Rupert Courtland's grave, and puts flowers on it once or twice a week. The cousin, you know, who planted the Home Field, and lived there with the Courtland brothers so many years. He was so fond of trees and flowers, and planted so many rose-trees that are now in full bloom.'
'Well, you may say what you like, but I think she is rather queer,' said Julia. 'Then, do you really think, Nell, that neither Stella nor Dr. Langdale care for each other, except as friends? Mind, as I said before, I have good reason for wishing to know.'
'But what good reason can anyone else have to know what chiefly concerns themselves? I should be very sorry to answer decidedly for either, especially for—well, I don't think I should say it.'
'For whom? What a close sort of thing you are getting, Nell!'
'Well, for Dr. Langdale, if you must know. When he walks across in the afternoon, if Stella is not in the room, or in the veranda where we sit so often, and he catches sight of her coming, or hears her voice, his whole face lights up. You see, his is a face that must show what he feels more than most men's. There is no part of it hidden. The eyes and mouth sometimes look as tender as a woman's, and yet there is something a little hard about him. And suddenly, when he is talking, something makes him look almost stern.'
'Well, Nell, you always were one to notice a great deal and find things out long before other people did!' said Julia with sisterly admiration. She herself seldom noticed things unless they had a distinctly personal bearing; and then she invariably interpreted them according to her own wishes.
'It seems to me you have been taking Dr. Langdale out of winding pretty completely,' she said after a pause.
'Well, you see, one must do something when one has to keep in-doors so much, and do a lot of sewing,' said Mrs. Claude with a pensive little sigh, unconsciously hitting upon one of the keys to that passion for psychological observations which, with some women, develops into a sort of sixth sense; 'but for all that, you know, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if they parted friends and nothing more. Certainly Dr. Langdale doesn't talk of returning to England much, lately; and Stella too, sometimes, when she speaks of returning to Fairacre, suddenly turns very silent. But that may be because she thinks of Ted. She is to stay at Laurette's on her way back.
'But what do Louise and Claude say? As for Hector, he's such a stick-in-the-mud, he wouldn't see anything unless several people told him plump.'