"And if not with you—where then?" asks Lady Monkton, indifferently, and as if more with a desire to keep up the dying conversation than from any acute thirst for knowledge.
"She stays a good deal with Lady Baltimore," says Barbara, feeling weary, and rather disgusted.
"Ah! indeed! Sort of companion—a governess, I suppose?"
A long pause. Mrs. Monkton's dark eyes grow dangerously bright, and a quick color springs into her cheeks.
"No!" begins she, in a low but indignant tone, and then suppresses herself. She can't, she mustn't quarrel with Freddy's people! "My sister is neither companion nor governess to Lady Baltimore," says she icily. "She is only her friend."
"Friend?" repeats the old lady, as if not quite understanding.
"A great friend," repeats Barbara calmly. Lady Monkton's astonishment is even more insulting than her first question. But Barbara has made up her mind to bear all things.
"There are friends and friends," puts in Miss L'Estrange with her most offensive air.
A very embarrassing silence falls on this, Barbara would say nothing more, an inborn sense of dignity forbidding her. But this does not prevent a very natural desire on her part to look at her husband, not so much to claim his support as to know if he has heard.
One glance assures her that he has. A pause in the conversation with his father has enabled him to hear everything. Barbara has just time to note that his brow is black and his lips ominously compressed before she sees him advance toward his mother.