"Why haven't you? But have you no conscience, thinking of poor Adolfo banging into all the trees and falling into all the ditches on his way home?"
"No, Adolfo and I are not troubled about conscience,—Adolfo and I understand each other perfectly. It's in the blood, I suppose; we belong to the same race," said the daughter of the Dueros.
She had been standing watching her fire; now she drew up a chair before it and sat down. "I did not say anything to Mr. Harold about you, after all," she said.
"I thought you wouldn't when I told you I did not wish it."
"I shall do it to-morrow; you are to come north with me the next time I go."
"I shall not leave East Angels."
"I saw Evert in New York," Garda began again, after a short silence. "I wrote a note asking him to come. He came—he came three times. But three times isn't much?" And she glanced towards Margaret.
Margaret had kept her place on the sofa where she was sitting when Garda entered; but she had drawn forward on its casters a tall screen to shield herself from the fire, and this threw her face into shadow. "No, not much," she answered from her dark nook.
"I love to tell you things," Garda resumed, gazing at the blaze. "Well—he wouldn't like me—what would you say to that? I had thought that perhaps he might; but no, he wouldn't."
This time there was no answer from the shadow.