"It does make one happy not to think of oneself," she said, "and how the time goes when you are thinking of other people. I am often astounded when Sunday comes round again, for the weeks go by in a flash. I take my dear Edith out for her drives—it is so good to her to have plenty of fresh air—and she comes to lunch with me every day almost, so that she shall not be alone in her house, with her husband away all day, and it is Sunday again, and I get what I call my weekly refresher from our dear Mr. Martin. Such a beautiful sermon he gave us last Sunday—ah, there is the ten I wanted—on the subject of his sad bereavement. His wife, you know. I took her out to Egypt with me; it was most important that she should get out of the winter fogs and damp of England, and she died at Luxor after three days' illness. How glad I was she had a friend with her—my dear, forgive me, how thoughtless I am."
"No, not thoughtless, my dear," said Mrs. Fanshawe. "Not thoughtless. And Mr. Martin. Tell me about Mr. Martin. I feel sure I should like Mr. Martin."
Mrs. Hancock bundled her patience cards together. She had not left a patience unfinished, except when the patience had finished her, for years. Perfectly as she could attend when she was playing it, she prepared now to be absolutely undistracted.
"Indeed, no one could help liking Mr. Martin," she said. "He has the noblest of characters, and with it all not a touch of priggishness. To see him play golf, or to hear him laugh, talk, you would never think he was a clergyman, but to hear him preach you would think he was a bishop at least. I know of nobody whom I admire more. Listen. Was not that the front-door bell? How tiresome if we are interrupted in our talk. Yes; I hear Lind going to open it. Now he has shut it again. Ah, it is only a note. Will you excuse me? Yes, from Edward. Just to say he and Edith will come to lunch to-morrow, as he is not going up to the City. No answer, Lind."
Now Mrs. Fanshawe had not failed to mark the expression of her sister-in-law's face when she spoke of Mr. Martin. If she had worn it herself she would have called it a "rapt expression," but it was not so admirable on the features of a woman who, to adopt Mrs. Fanshawe's point of view, was already aground, so to speak, on the shallows of advanced middle-age, where there is not sufficient youth to carry you over those emotional banks. Still, on a younger and perhaps a more spiritual face, it would have been rapt, and it occurred to her that in mind perhaps her sister-in-law was not as old as she looked or as she was. It would be very ridiculous if at that age a woman was the prey of sentimental notions—but then she had a very comfortable house, a delightful retreat from the stuffy little kennel in Oakley Street.
Mrs. Hancock waited till Lind had quite shut the drawing-room door, and then turned to her sister-in-law again.
"My dear, I want your advice," she said, "for you are a woman of the world and I am sure are wise. You see this spring, after poor Mrs. Martin's death, I saw a great deal of the vicar, and I think I was able to comfort and uphold him, so that he leans a good deal on me now, though of course we have been very great friends for years. Could you give that footstool just a little kick this way? He feels his loneliness very much; he wants some one whom he knows and trusts and, shall I say, admires?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Fanshawe. "Admires, I am sure."
"How kind of you! Well, admires, to take the place of her whom he has lost, and who was a very good, sweet sort of woman indeed."
Mrs. Hancock leaned forward.