"I am rather sorry for that on your account," said her sister.
"You needn't be," was the rejoinder. "I have no yearnings in that direction which are not satisfied with what I have." She sat for a minute or two with her hands clasped upon her knee, gazing reflectively into the fire, which, in the growing darkness of the winter afternoon, afforded almost the only light in the room. Presently she became conscious that her sister was regarding her with an air of expectation, and resumed: "Leaving the question of the conventions out of the discussion as settled," she said, "there is nothing, Alice, that you need have any concern about, either on Mr. Lenox's account or mine."
"You like him, don't you?" asked Mrs. Carling.
"Yes," said Mary frankly, "I like him very much. We have enough in common to be rather sympathetic, and we differ enough not to be dull, and so we get on very well. I never had a brother," she continued, after a momentary pause, "but I feel toward him as I fancy I should feel toward a brother of about my own age, though he is five or six years older than I am."
"You don't think, then," said Mrs. Carling timidly, "that you are getting to care for him at all?"
"In the sense that you use the word," was the reply, "not the least in the world. If there were to come a time when I really believed I should never see him again, I should be sorry; but if at any time it were a question of six months or a year, I do not think my equanimity would be particularly disturbed."
"And how about him?" suggested Mrs. Carling. There was no reply.
"Don't you think he may care for you, or be getting to?"
Mary frowned slightly, half closing her eyes and stirring a little uneasily in her chair.
"He hasn't said anything to me on the subject," she replied evasively.