"You should add that it has seemed like one minute," said Mrs. Crosbie, with a pretty little laugh, and waving a fan, for the heat was stifling. "Well, if you must go, you must!" She rose, and walked with her visitor to the door, glancing over her shoulder meanwhile. "Excuse me, Gerald, I shall return soon." And she left the room with the Italian.
This marked courtesy was not usual with Mrs. Crosbie, as she was a spoilt beauty, who preferred that others should wait on her, rather than that she should trouble herself about others. Haskins wondered at her self-denial, and especially in the face of such heat: wondered also that she should look so pale and worried. Apparently something was wrong with Mrs. Crosbie, and he began to conjecture whether Tod was correct as to money matters. Gerald was not over-rich himself, but he determined to question his mother's friend, and learn if possible what bothered her, so that he could proffer help.
His hostess returned after some minutes, and looked quite herself, but the renewed color might have been due to the reflection of the rose-hued curtains. She tripped across the olive-green carpet like a fairy, and resembled one, being delicate and tiny and beautifully formed. People said that Mrs. Crosbie's blonde hair and pink and white complexion were due to art, since a woman of forty could not possibly look so young without artificial aids. But be this as it may, she certainly appeared wonderfully pretty in her white silk tea-gown, which was draped with expensive lace. Haskins complimented her on her looks when she sank again into her chair and took up the cigarette-case lying on the table at her elbow. "And yet, you know," added Gerald thoughtfully, "I fancied that you looked worried and pale when I came."
Mrs. Crosbie lighted her cigarette and shot a keen glance at him. "We all have our worries, my dear boy," she said, blowing a wreath of smoke.
"You should not have any, Mrs. Crosbie. And if there is anything that I can put right, you know that I----"
"Yes! Yes! I know," she interrupted hurriedly, "but you can't. It really is nothing--oh, nothing at all. It is the heat that makes me look pale and washed out. Mother is lying down quite exhausted, but will be in to tea. I hope no one else will come, Gerald, and then we can have a nice long talk."
"That is what I have come to have," he said soberly, and produced his own cigarette-case, which he laid on the table. "Give me a match, please. Thank you!" he lighted up. "I am in trouble."
"And you have come to me as usual."
"Yes. I hope that I don't carry coals to Newcastle."
Mrs. Crosbie shrugged. "My troubles are only minor ones, such as come to every woman when she gets past her youth."