Hand in hand the two ladies went within, to look at each other, they said. Mrs. Harold and Winthrop followed.
"Now, Margaret," said Mrs. Rutherford, after the first greetings were over, "you surely need feel no further scruples about leaving me; Betty and I have enough to say to each other for a half-hour, I am sure."
"For a half-hour, Katrina? For days! weeks! months!" cried Betty, with enthusiasm. And she began upon what was evidently to be a long series of retrospective questions and replies.
"Why not go for a while, if, as you say, you are not tired?" said Winthrop, in pursuance of his system of showing always a careful civility to Margaret Harold.
"It was not I that said it," replied Margaret, smiling a little. "I will go for a quarter of an hour," she added, as though compliance were, on the whole, less trouble than a second refusal. She took a white shawl which was lying on a chair, made a veil for her head of one corner, while the rest of its fleecy length fell over her dark dress. They left the room and went down the outside stairway to the street below.
It was called a street, and had even a name—Pacheco; but in reality it was the open shore.
"It has such an odd effect to me, all this low-lying country on a level with the water," said Margaret; "the whole land is like a sea-beach, a sea-beach with trees growing on it."
"Do you like it? or do you think it ugly?"
"I think it very beautiful—in its own way."
"I will take you to the Benito," said Winthrop.