“It’s too bad,” said Bertha sympathetically. “Perhaps if he came back, now that he and Rosamund are a little older and have rather more sense....”
“Oh, my dear! he’s got over that nonsense long ago. I always told you it wouldn’t last. ‘Weak and unstable as water,’ that’s what my poor Morris is.”
Bertha did not remind Mrs. Severing that everything had been done to insure the instability of Morris in this particular case. She only said affectionately:
“Well, good-bye, Nina darling. Don’t forget to take pity on my old man, since I can’t drag him to London.”
“He must come and cheer me up some afternoon, if he will,” cordially responded Nina. Both ladies were perfectly aware that Frederick Tregaskis would do nothing of the sort, and that there were few things less conducive to the cheering up of either than an encounter between him and Mrs. Severing. But they exchanged their fallacious hopes with an air of affectionately reassuring one another.
“I’ve one comfort,” declared Bertie, “I’m hoping to see a very old friend of mine in town: Sybil Argent. I believe she and her son are there for a few weeks.”
“Didn’t she become a Catholic?” asked Nina, with a sudden air of intense interest, which provoked Bertha to a display of extreme nonchalance instantly.
“Let me see—did she? Oh yes. I believe she has become a Roman. Silly woman! Got under the influence of some priest or other, I fancy. She was never over-wise, though a dear, sweet thing.”
“There is a wisdom which is not of this world,” said Nina, upraising her eyes, and with an air of quotation.
Bertha laughed heartily.