‘I declare, Nina,’ said Kate, ‘you have stripped every leaf off my poor ivy-geranium; there’s nothing left of it but bare branches.’
‘There goes the last handful,’ said the other, as she threw them over the parapet, some falling on Gorman as he leaned out. ‘It was a bad habit I learned from yourself, child. I remember when I came here, you used to do this each night, like a religious rite.’
‘I suppose they were the dried or withered leaves that I threw away,’ said Kate, with a half-irritation in her voice.
‘No, they were not. They were oftentimes from your prettiest roses, and as I watched you, I saw it was in no distraction or inadvertence you were doing this, for you were generally silent and thoughtful some time before, and there was even an air of sadness about you, as though a painful thought was bringing its gloomy memories.’
‘What an object of interest I have been to you without suspecting it,’ said Kate coldly.
‘It is true,’ said the other, in the same tone; ‘they who make few confidences suggest much ingenuity. If you had a meaning in this act and told me what it was, it is more than likely I had forgotten all about it ere now. You preferred secrecy, and you made me curious.’
‘There was nothing to reward curiosity,’ said she, in the same measured tone; then, after a moment, she added, ‘I’m sure I never sought to ascribe some hidden motive to you. When you left my plants leafless, I was quite content to believe that you were mischievous without knowing it.’
‘I read you differently,’ said Nina. ‘When you do mischief you mean mischief. Now I became so—so—what shall I call it, intriguée about this little “fetish” of yours, that I remember well the night you first left off and never resumed it.’
‘And when was that?’ asked Kate carelessly.
‘On a certain Friday, the night Miss O’Shea dined here last; was it not a Friday?’