Minnie Hescott, during the time it takes her to go down the terrace steps behind Tita, comes to a resolution. She will give Tita a hint! It will be a gift of no mean order, and whether it be well received or not, will always be a gift to be remembered, perhaps with gratitude.
And Minnie, who is strictly practical if nothing else, sees a fair hope of return in her present plan. She likes Tita in her way—likes her perhaps better than she likes most people, and Tita may be useful to her as Sir Maurice Rylton's wife. But Tita, dismantled of her honours, would be no help at all, and therefore to keep Tita enthroned is now a very special object with her astute cousin.
In and between all this is Minnie's detestation of Mrs. Bethune, who has occasionally been rude to her in the small ways that make up the sum of life.
Minnie, who is not sensitive, takes the bull by the horns.
"Mrs. Bethune," says she, as they go by a bed of hollyhocks now hastening to their death, "is a friend of yours?"
It is a question.
"Mrs. Bethune!" says Tita, stopping and looking at her as if wondering.
What does she mean?
"Yes," says Minnie pleasantly. "A friend. An old friend!"
"Not an old friend," says Tita quietly. "She is a cousin of
Maurice's."