‘I should think she would love to live with you,’ says Susan. She utters this bold sentiment calmly, kindly, without so much as a blink of her long lashes.
Crosby looks at her. Is she real, this pretty child? His inclination to laugh dies within him; and so dies, too, the inclination to utter the usual society speech, that with most society girls would have been considered the thing on an occasion like this. Both are done to death by Susan’s eyes, so calm, so sweet, so earnest, and so entirely without a second meaning of any sort.
‘Well, you see, she doesn’t,’ says he.
‘But why?’ asks Susan. She is feeling a little angry with the unknown sister. To live with Carew, if he were well off enough to have her, would, Susan thinks, be a most delightful arrangement.
‘It seems she prefers to live with another fellow,’ says he.
Susan stares at him. He nods back at her.
‘Fact,’ says he. ‘Horrid taste on her part, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, I see,’ says Susan slowly. ‘She’s married.’
‘Very much,’ says Crosby. ‘At all events, her husband is. She doesn’t give him much rope. However, you’ll see her soon, as she is coming to stay with me. She always makes a point of coming to me for my birthday, whenever I chance to be in Ireland or England for it. I suppose I must be going now. I say, you two fellows’—turning to Carew and Dom—‘why are you so lazy? Why don’t you come up and help me to shoot the rabbits? They are getting beyond the keepers’ control.’
Dom and Carew glance at each other.