“Yes, she grieves, certainly,” Grace said.
She had much more she would have liked to say, but she did not say it.
She did not, for instance, tell Valentine that the night he had called agitatedly for her to come and minister to Lady Wentworth as she lay prone and, to him, senseless in his arms, she had at once seen that neither the fainting fit nor the sorrow were real.
She would have been amused by Christina’s tricks had her heart not ached for her dead cousin and his marred and wasted life.
Only one sharp remark did Grace make in connection with Christina, and that was when Valentine told her of Lady Wentworth’s eager desire to go and live with her mother for a time.
“It is as well,” was what Grace said, “is it not, that Lady Wentworth did not move her mother and sister into our old house, as she intended doing?”
But Valentine did not catch the irony.
“It would have made no difference,” he had answered, quite simply, “for I should never have moved them, and Lady Wentworth could have gone to them just the same. In fact, I think I should like you, Grace, to propose this arrangement to Mrs. Pennington.”
But Grace drew back.
“Polly would never consent to this.”