'Claude and Louise? We none of us exchanged a syllable on the matter. Oh, you mustn't imagine we sit and talk things over, and try to ferret things out, as—as we girls used to.'
'Well, I call that a very cold, reserved sort of way for a family,' said Julia, with a touch of scorn. 'And that's one of the things that the tourist people who come here for a few weeks, and write books, praise us for. They say we have such an open, unreserved, easy way.
'But then you see those tourists mostly see the people who have made money in business in the towns, and they are nearly always garrulous everywhere. It's their life,' said Mrs. Claude, with a touch of her husband's manner that was not lost upon Julia.
'Yes, and no doubt the Courtlands are extra reserved because of their ancestry,' she said, tossing her head. 'It's good of you to keep so friendly with us, Nell, after marrying into such a set.'
'Don't be so absurd, Julia; and whatever you do, don't mention a word of what I've said to anyone.'
'What have you said, then?' cried Julia, in high dudgeon. 'I could imagine ten times as much in half a minute. I believe you know more than you say. I think Stella Courtland is a perfect flirt, and you don't like to—to tell on her. But, after all, I don't believe she'll ever give up a man with fifteen thousand a year for one that has to look at people's tongues for a living.'
Mrs. Claude could not refrain from laughter at this incisive summing-up.
'Dr. Langdale needn't if he does not like. You know he has seven hundred a year private income.'
'Yes; his father was in business, at any rate—a London fruit-broker. I don't think that was so very aristocratic,' said Julia, who really was in the mood in which certain women love to fling their tongue abroad like a javelin.
'Yes, his father was a London fruit-broker and the grandson of a baronet,' answered Mrs. Claude calmly. 'Oh, Mrs. Morrison only mentioned it in the course of conversation, just when I told her that my pretty moss-green bonnet was bought in London, in a shop kept by a lord's daughter.'