"Why, really, Marion, I had not any idea you had taken enough notice of her to see all that. What a farce you must have been acting all this time, to seem so indifferent when you were really so deeply interested!"
"If that is so, Georgie," replied Marion, as she looked her companion steadily in the face, "I have been a better actress than you, for you play your part so badly that the little boys in the amphitheatre might see into the plot in the first act. I advise you to try another rôle."
Georgie opened her eyes in pretended astonishment; but she knew very well what Marion meant, and that her intentions of tormenting her companion were fully understood. But that fact did not prevent her from saying in a gently insinuating tone: "Now, Marion, don't be provoked, but don't you think that Florence is rather turning the cold shoulder on you?"
"No, Miss Graham, I do not," emphatically replied Marion, and for at least five minutes Georgie said nothing. "I wonder!" she at last exclaimed, "if Rachel Drayton is rich. I think she must be, for although there is no style to her clothes, and she is of course very dowdy-looking, still everything she has is made of the most expensive material, and you know nice mourning costs awfully. Just look at her vail now; see how long it is, and of the heaviest crépe; but she looks like a ghost under it! I don't believe but what she is rich."
"Well, Georgie," replied Marion, with the slightest possible curve of her lip, "I can satisfy you on that point. She is quite well off; her father left about two millions, and with the exception of a few legacies of two or three hundred thousand or so, mere trifles to her, she will have it all; you see she is pretty well provided for."
"Two millions!" exclaimed Georgie, startled out of her usual composure; "two millions! why, I hadn't any idea of it."
"No, I thought not," dryly replied Marion.
"But, Marion, are you sure? How did you know it?"
"I heard Miss Stiefbach tell Miss Christine so the day Miss Drayton came here."
"And you've known it all this time!" ejaculated Georgie, who could not get over her astonishment.