“Well, I suppose they have seen something of the world. The other lady was her mother. And the man with us—that might interest you more, Mrs. Laflamme, was Mr. Lyon, who will be the Earl of Chisholm.”
“Ah! Then I suppose she has money?”
“I never saw any painful evidence of poverty. But I don't think Mr. Lyon is fortune-hunting. He seems to be after information and—goodness.”
Margaret flushed a little, but apparently Henderson did not notice it. Then she said (after Mrs. Laflamme had dropped the subject with the remark that he had come to the right place), “Miss Eschelle called on me yesterday.”
“And was, no doubt, agreeable.”
“She was, as Mrs. Laflamme says, entertaining. She quoted you a good deal.”
“Quoted me? For what?”
“As one would a book, as a familiar authority.”
“I suppose I ought to be flattered, if you will excuse the street expression, to have my stock quotable. Perhaps you couldn't tell whether Miss Eschelle was a bull or a bear in this case?”
“I don't clearly know what that is. She didn't offer me any,” said Margaret, in a tone of carrying on the figure without any personal meaning.