She dropped on her knees by the sofa and began to kiss her mother's hand, which surprised Mrs. Bullivant; and indeed it is a foreign trick, picked up mostly by those who go abroad. "Mother," she said, "are you really pleased about it? You don't mind then?"
"Mind?" said Mrs. Bullivant.
"Oh, how glad, how glad I am. And father? What does he say? Does he—does he mind?"
"Mind?" repeated Mrs. Bullivant.
"Father is very pleased, I think," said Judith, with what in one less lovely would have been a slight pursing of the lips. And she twisted a remarkable diamond ring she was wearing straight.
"Father is—pleased?" echoed Ingeborg, quite awe-struck by the amount and quality of these reliefs.
"I must say I think it is really good of your dear father to be pleased, when he loses—" began Mrs. Bullivant.
"Oh, yes, yes," interrupted the overcome Ingeborg, "it's a wonder—a wonder of God."
"Ingeborg dear," her mother gently rebuked, for this was excess; and Judith looked still more what would have been a little pursed in any other woman.
"When he loses," then resumed Mrs. Bullivant with the plaintive determination of one who considers it the least she may expect as a sofa-ridden mother to be allowed to finish her sentences, "so much."