“Perhaps I should. But I would rather have your permission. And after all, you know, Flora—you won’t be able to pull strings from your Sisterhood.”
It was the last, almost the only, reference that he would permit himself, and both could smile at it faintly.
“Very well, Owen. I don’t want to remember it ever again, and I shall only think of Mrs. Carey now in one way.”
She lacked the Canon’s capacity for outward expression, even now, and her colour rose as she spoke.
Only in earnest and uncondemnatory intercession would Mrs. Carey find place again in Flora’s thoughts.
Owen knew it as well as though she had told him so.
The evening was mild and beautiful, and the Canon sat at the open window, leaning back as though greatly fatigued, and asked Flora for some music.
“Shall I sing?” she asked.
“Are you able to, my dear?”
“Yes, indeed,” she said earnestly, and Quentillian could surmise that she was instinctively eager for the form of self-expression most natural to her, as a vent for her own mingled emotions.