Phoebe came to a sudden stop, and with her heart heating wildly, looked up into the face of Osmund Derwent.
“I am too happy to have met with you,” said he. “I was on my way to White-Ladies. May I presume to ask your good offices, Mrs Phoebe, to favour me so far as to present me to Madam Furnival!”
Phoebe courtesied her assent.
“Mrs Rhoda, I trust, is well?”
“She is very well, I thank you.”
“I am rejoiced to hear it. You will not, I apprehend, Mrs Phoebe, suffer any surprise, if I tell you of my hopes with regard to Mrs Rhoda. You must, surely, have seen, when at Delawarr Court, what was my ambition. Think you there is any chance for me with Madam Furnival?”
It was well for Osmund Derwent that he had not the faintest idea of what was going on beneath the still, white face of the girl who walked beside him so quietly. She understood now. She knew, revealed as by a flash of lightning, what it was which it would be hard work to resign at God’s call.
It was Rhoda for whom he cared—not Phoebe. Phoebe was interesting to him, simply as being in his mind associated with Rhoda. And Rhoda did not want him: and Phoebe had to tell him so.
So she told him. “I am sure Madam would receive you with a welcome,” she said. “But as for Mrs Rhoda, ’tis best you should know she stands promised already.”
Mr Derwent thought Phoebe particularly unsympathising. People often do think so of those whose “hands are clasped above a hidden pain,” and who have to speak with forced calmness, as the only way in which they dare speak at all. He felt a little hurt; he had thought Phoebe so friendly at Delawarr Court.