Anita, still thrusting down the overflowing papers, answered coldly—
“Madala sent it to Mother. She said that it wasn’t good enough but that it would give her an idea.”
“It certainly gives one an idea,” said the blonde lady languorously.
“And then she put in a post-script that it didn’t do him justice because the sun was in his eyes. Defiantly, as it were. Isn’t that significant? She’d never own to a mistake. Pride! She had the devil’s own pride. Look at the way she took her reviews! And in this case she would be bound to defend him. She’d defend anything she’d once taken under her wing.”
“Well, you know,” drawled the blonde lady, her eyes on the photograph, “according to this he topped her by two inches. I don’t somehow see him under Madala’s wing.” And then—“After all, there’s something rather fascinating in bone and muscle.”
“Yes, and I don’t see,” the Baxter girl hurried into defiance, “honestly I don’t see, Miss Serle, why she shouldn’t have been in love with him. Of course, it’s not a clever face, but it’s good-tempered, and it’s good-looking, and there’s a twinkle. Madala loved a twinkle. And I don’t see——”
Anita crushed her.
“We’re discussing the standards of Madala Grey.”
“That’s not the point either, Anita.” Mr. Flood would sometimes rouse himself to defend the Baxter girl. “You know something. You own to it. What do you know?”
“Simply that she was in love with someone else. I’ve papers that prove it. Now it was either some man whom none of us know, whom for some reason she wouldn’t let us know, or——” she hesitated. Then she began again—“Mind you, I don’t commit myself, but—has the likeness never struck you? Hugh Barrington in The Resting-place and——?” Her eyes flickered towards Kent Rehan.