‘I’m sure Phil would tell me directly; he tells me everything about himself.’
‘He is a wonderful brother, then,’ said Meredith; but his own face had clouded over somewhat, and by-and-by he asked, with a touch of sharpness in his tone:
‘Has he never spoken to you, then, of his engagement?’
‘His engagement?’
‘Yes; are you so much astonished? Did you not know that he was half-engaged?’
Maud calmed down a little after her first amazement. She knew that the blind man was given to romancing, but she could not yet understand the bearing of such a remark as this.
‘No, Mr. Meredith. I don’t know anything about it. To whom is he half-engaged?’
‘To Roma.’
This was said with an air of such pride and satisfaction that Maud nearly smiled. She wondered if it could be true. Phil had been to see the blind man and his daughter a great deal, and had of late seemed more interested in Roma; but certainly Maud had seen no traces of anything like a romantic attachment.
‘Phil engaged to Roma!’ she repeated. ‘He never said a word to me!’