“You’ve felt it all, just as I have, Nina, that’s why I can speak to you so freely,” returned Bertha smiling.
“Darling Bertie! I wish I could give you longer, but you know how tiresome people are, and Gwen Cotton is so dreadfully exacting. Wretched if I don’t stay there whenever I’m anywhere near the place, and never allowing me out of her sight when I get there. It really is absurd—a perfect infatuation—nobody can think why. It always makes me laugh.”
“How dear of you not to mind! That sort of thing, making one look so absolutely ridiculous, always makes me angry,” said Bertha serenely. “Is Morris there too?”
“He joins me to-morrow. I want him to come over and see you.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Tregaskis meditatively. “Yes.”
So Morris came, and in his blue, direct gaze Rosamund read a sympathy that he was later on to express in words.
Together in the garden, on an afternoon that reminded them both oddly of another afternoon spent together in the garden at Porthlew, they stood and looked over the valley.
“May I say something?” asked Morris suddenly and gently.
“Yes.”
“In spite of everything, you are happier here than at Porthlew, aren’t you? I mean—it’s your right place, so to speak—this valley, and your own home and everything.”