'Yes,' Margaret remarked rather desperately, 'I don't wonder. I suppose I've been flirting outrageously with them both. But I really could not foresee that one would run over the other and that you would appear just at that moment, could I? I'm helpless. I've nothing to say. You must have flirted when you were young. Try to remember what it was like, and make allowance for human weakness!'
She laughed nervously and glanced nervously at her companion, but Mrs. Rushmore's face was like iron.
'Mr. Rushmore,' said the latter, alluding to her departed husband, 'would not have understood such conduct.'
Margaret thought this was very probable, judging from the likenesses of the late Ransom Rushmore which she had seen. There was one in particular, an engraving of him when he had been president of some big company, which had always filled her with a vague uneasiness. In her thoughts she called him the 'commercial missionary,' and was glad for his sake and her own that he was safe in heaven, with no present prospect of getting out.
'I'm sorry,' she said, without much contrition. 'I mean,' she went on, correcting herself, and with more feeling, 'I'm sorry I've done anything that you don't like, for you've been ever so good to me.'
'So have other people,' answered the elder woman with an air of mystery and reproof.
'Oh yes! I know! Everybody has been very kind—especially Madame Bonanni.'
'Should you be surprised to hear that the individual who bought out Mr. Moon and made you independent, did it from purely personal motives?'
Margaret turned to her quickly in great surprise.
'What do you mean? I thought it was a company. You said so.'