She did not reply and he spoke again.
"But my own business is different. I can mind that, and it's time I thought a bit more about it. Not that 'tis ever out of my thoughts really; yet life comes between a man and his deepest desires sometimes, and life--and death--has stood between me and the first business of my life lately."
"Has it?" she said in an indifferent voice.
"You know it has, Rhoda. You know what I've been through. You came to the graveside of my dear mother at my express wish--"
"'Twas at your aunt's wish--not yours."
"Anyway you came, and not being blind, you must have known what putting her into the ground meant to me."
She stared at him coldly, but did not speak. The grief that Bartley had displayed above his mother's coffin when it sank to earth was real enough. He had mourned her then from his heart. But while Rhoda watched the man weep on that mournful occasion, there had filled her mind, not sympathy at his present real grief, but sheer amazement at his past equally real levity. It was quite beyond her mental endowment to understand how the same man could laugh on the day after his mother's death, and weep at the ceremony of her interment.
Her thoughts now hardened her heart. She guessed that he was about to be personal and prepared to waste no consideration upon him.
"You'll be gone out of England soon, I suppose. What's Miss Saunders going to do?"
"Lord knows. My Aunt Susan's been rather difficult since mother died. She wants to go to Canada with me; but--well, my mind's set on somebody else."