"This you must eat, Mr. Martin," she said; "it is the new sort of lettuce which Ellis insisted on my getting. I am told that in Egypt it is quite unsafe to eat salad or any raw vegetable, for you can't tell who has been touching it, or what sort of water it has been washed in. It's the same in India, is it not, Elizabeth?"
Mr. Martin turned briskly to the girl.
"And why don't you join your aunt in her tour to Egypt?" he said. "It's all on the way back to India, is it not? Why not put Afric's sunny fountains in before India's coral strands? Dear me, how wonderful Bishop Heber's grasp is!"
This was indeed another coincidence, that Mr. Martin should suggest, quite without consultation, the very scheme that Mrs. Hancock had "planned and contrived." That Mr. Martin should think of it quite independently, seemed to Mrs. Hancock a tremendous, almost a religious, argument in its favour.
"Well, that is odd now that you should have mentioned that," she said, "for I was proposing to Elizabeth only this morning that she should do that very thing. And that Mr. Martin should agree with me! Well!"
Edward looked up, caught Elizabeth's eye, ricocheted, so to speak, on to Edith's, and returned in time to catch the drift of Mr. Martin's further comment on Bishop Heber. Mrs. Hancock saw the sudden colour flame in Elizabeth's face, saw the glance that played between her three young people, and shut more firmly than ever the door into which she had thrust her conjecture on this subject. She entirely refused to recognize the possible existence of anything so very uncomfortable. Mr. Martin observed that his wife had got well under way again with Bishop Heber, and spoke confidently to his hostess.
"I've got schemes in my head, too, about Egypt," he said, "though I don't know that they will come to anything. I want to send my dear Minnie to the South for a month or two of the winter. You remember, perhaps, how unwell she was last winter, and what wonderful jellies Mrs. Williams sent her. Indeed, if I think I can manage it, I believe I shall really have the courage to suggest that she goes out about the same time as you, so that she won't be quite alone in the land of bondage. Of course, I don't for the moment hint at her actually joining your party. But hush, Mrs. Hancock, we are observed! I have not said a word about it to her yet."
It was impossible that Mrs. Hancock should not feel that Providence had kindly turned his attention to her disappointment about Elizabeth and the Egyptian tour. It was true that the even more harrowing subject of her lonely October—in case Elizabeth persisted in her selfishness—had not at present attracted his notice, but this suggestion of Mr. Martin's seemed to her to be a direct and Divine contrivance for her comfort. She had no wish to examine into the logic of her belief; she did not dream of inquiring if she really thought that Mrs. Martin had suffered from bronchitis last winter in order that her husband might think of sending her South now, so that Mrs. Hancock should have somebody to attend to her in Egypt, but she felt that Elizabeth perhaps was not intended to go to Egypt, which being so, Providence, having a special regard for her comfort, had put forward this utterly unexpected idea to see if she liked it. She did like it. She also formed the conclusion that she on her side was meant not to urge Elizabeth any more, nor even to see if Mr. Martin could not probe and heal her trouble. It was evident that her entire arrangements were being seen after for her. But she had to meet this half-way, to acquiesce thankfully, and help it on. She turned beamingly to Mr. Martin.
"The very thing!" she said. "And as for dear Mrs. Martin not being of our party, how could you suggest such an idea?"
Some subject cognate to Bishop Heber was actively engaging Mrs. Martin, and Mrs. Hancock could speak without fear of being overheard.