"Dear me, mamma! is he hollow?" said Garda, while Margaret gave way to laughter. But Mrs. Thorne liked even Margaret's laughs; Margaret too she found "very satisfying," she said.
When she spoke to Winthrop about Lucian Spenser, however, she found him perhaps not so satisfying as usual.
"I know nothing whatever about Mr. Spenser," he answered.
"We are seeing a good deal of him at present," remarked the little mother, in a conversational tone, ignoring his reply. "It's rather better—don't you think so?—to know something—definite—of those one is seeing a good deal of?"
"That is the way to learn, isn't it—seeing a good deal of them?" Winthrop answered.
Mrs. Thorne coughed in her most discreet manner, and looked about the room for a moment or two. Then, "Do you like him, Mr. Winthrop?" she said, her eyes on the opposite wall.
"My dear lady, what has that got to do with it?"
"Much," responded Mrs. Thorne, modestly dropping her eyes to the carpet. "A man's opinion of a man, you know, may be quite different from a woman's."
"There is his cousin, Mr. Moore."
"I have already asked Mr. Moore; he knows only Mr. Spenser's grandfathers," replied Mrs. Thorne, dismissing the clergyman, as informant, with a wave of her dry little hand.