“Oh, yes, she spoke about it,” said Jack. “Indeed, it was a curious coincidence, for just as I arrived she was out in the garden, and again the puppy was shaking himself, having fallen into the fountain.”
Mrs. Vernon gave a titter of laughter, like a chromatic scale.
“There seems to be a fate in such things,” she exclaimed. “How exciting, and how romantic! Thank you, one more cup of this delicious tea.”
Before long the others left, and shortly after Canon Collingwood retired to the garden. Jack and his mother spoke of indifferent things till the tea-table was cleared; and after the servant had gone:
“I wanted to talk to you, Jack, before you went. You received my letter?”
“Yes, this morning. I tore it up, as you asked me to, without reading it.”
Mrs. Collingwood was silent a moment.
“Thank you,” she said at length, simply. “My reason was this—I wrote hastily. I could not but think that Miss Avesham would consider your painting of that portrait as a great liberty. It appears she did not, and that you are excellent friends. So I was wrong about her attitude.”
Mrs. Collingwood took a chair closer to Jack.
“Jack, you were right in what you said yesterday,” she went on. “You and I are made very differently. We must accept it. I have been too much given to judging you, to disapproving, and disapproval does no good. But you must not judge me either. You have your own life to live. You can not grasp my point of view, and if I am tempted to disapprove of you, I will be careful in the future not to do that, but to simply say that I do not understand.”