“And,” went on Mabin with calm triumph, “old Lady Mallyan has told me something too. And as I had a long talk with Mr. Banks yesterday, I think perhaps the tables are turned, and I know more than you do now.”
Mabin seated herself, as she spoke, on the garden seat which was placed, most charmingly as far as picturesque effect was concerned, but most inconveniently, if one considered earwigs and green flies, under a tall lime-tree and against a dark hedge of yew. Rudolph was intensely relieved to find that her jealous and angry mood of the evening before had passed away; and although he was puzzled by her new manner, which was easy, friendly, but not affectionate, he thought it better to fall in with her mood and not to risk the pleasure of the moment, by asking for explanations just yet. Mabin, on her side, felt a curiously pleasant sense of present enjoyment and irresponsibility. It was happiness to be with Rudolph, without any dispute to trouble their intercourse. And she found that by turning his attention and her own away from themselves to the subject of Mrs. Dale and her troubles, she got not only the full delight of Rudolph’s attention, but the satisfaction that she was stifling, if not conquering, her own weakness.
Rudolph was charmed by the new and undefinable change to greater frankness, to less shyness, in her manner.
“Well,” said he, pulling down the bough of a guelder rose-tree and beginning with great precision to strip off the leaves, “I couldn’t help myself, could I? I couldn’t tell you somebody else’s secrets without permission. And you see you haven’t had to wait very long to know all about it.”
“Oh, I’m not thinking about that,” said Mabin superbly. “It was annoying at the time not to know what you were all talking about; but I soon got over that. What I am thinking about now is the best thing to be done for Mrs. Dale. You know who this Mr. Banks is, I suppose?”
Her assumption of a lofty standpoint of deep knowledge combined with great indifference amused Rudolph.
“Do you?” retorted he.
“I suppose,” she answered almost in a whisper, and looking down on the ground as she spoke, “that he is Lady Mallyan’s son Willie.”
Rudolph looked astonished.
“You do know something then!” said he at last. “Yes, I suppose he is.”