Mrs. Wilkins ignored the card.
“It’s so funny,” said Mrs. Wilkins, just as if she had not heard her, “but I see us both—you and me—this April in the mediaeval castle.”
Mrs. Arbuthnot relapsed into uneasiness. “Do you?” she said, making an effort to stay balanced under the visionary gaze of the shining grey eyes. “Do you?”
“Don’t you ever see things in a kind of flash before they happen?” asked Mrs. Wilkins.
“Never,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
She tried to smile; she tried to smile the sympathetic yet wise and tolerant smile with which she was accustomed to listen to the necessarily biassed and incomplete views of the poor. She didn’t succeed. The smile trembled out.
“Of course,” she said in a low voice, almost as if she were afraid the vicar and the Savings Bank were listening, “it would be most beautiful—most beautiful—”
“Even if it were wrong,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “it would only be for a month.”
“That—” began Mrs. Arbuthnot, quite clear as to the reprehensibleness of such a point of view; but Mrs. Wilkins stopped her before she could finish.
“Anyhow,” said Mrs. Wilkins, stopping her, “I’m sure it’s wrong to go on being good for too long, till one gets miserable. And I can see you’ve been good for years and years, because you look so unhappy”—Mrs. Arbuthnot opened her mouth to protest—“and I—I’ve done nothing but duties, things for other people, ever since I was a girl, and I don’t believe anybody loves me a bit—a bit—the b-better—and I long—oh, I long—for something else—something else—”