“Oh! I leave all the money matters to him,” said Mrs. Lambert, with that expression of serene satisfaction in her husband that had already had a malign effect on Miss Mullen’s temper. “I know I can trust him.”
“You’ve a very different story to-day to what you had the last time I was here,” said Charlotte with a sneer. “Are all your doubts of him composed?”
The entrance of the tea-tray precluded all possibility of answer; but Charlotte knew that her javelin was quivering in the wound. The moment the door closed behind the servant, Mrs. Lambert turned upon her assailant with the whimper in her voice that Charlotte knew so well.
“I greatly regretted, Charlotte,” she said, with as much dignity as she could muster, “speaking to you the way I did, for I believe now I was totally mistaken.”
It might be imagined that Charlotte would have taken pleasure in Mrs. Lambert’s security, inasmuch as it implied her own; but, so far from this being the case, it was intolerable to her that her friend should be blind to the fact that tortured her night and day.
“And what’s changed your mind, might I ask?”
“His conduct has changed my mind, Charlotte,” replied Mrs. Lambert severely; “and that’s enough for me.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re pleased with his conduct, Lucy; but if he was my husband I’d find out what he was doing at Tally Ho every day in the week before I was so rejoiced about him.”
Charlotte’s face had flushed in the heat of argument, and Mrs. Lambert felt secretly a little frightened.
“Begging your pardon, Charlotte,” she said, still striving after dignity, “he’s not there every day, and when he does go it’s to talk business with you he goes, about Gurthnamuckla and money and things like that.”