“I suppose I could. I don’t know. Fred got this house to please me, when we were first married. He’d have done anything for me, then. I little knew what a life he was going to lead me later on!”
Flora rose.
“I’ve got to go. I will burn the letter that David wrote me, about you. Only one person knows what was in it, besides myself, and he will never repeat it.”
“Was that your father?”
“No, oh, no. My father mustn’t know, ever.”
Flora paused for a moment, then judged that it would be useless to make any appeal to Mrs. Carey’s discretion. For her own sake, she might keep silence as to her relationship with David Morchard, and a fresh emotional disturbance would eventually displace the episode—to her, it could be no more—from her mind.
Mrs. Carey looked at her curiously.
“Of course, I remember you told me that your father didn’t know. Then are you engaged?”
“No,” said Flora, colouring slightly.
“All men are beasts—you’re quite right to have nothing to do with them. I’ve had such a rotten time, what with Fred’s jealousy, and other men never letting me alone, that I sometimes wish I’d stayed an old maid, like you,” said Mrs. Carey.