“Of course, if it’s a secret, I have no business to ask, I suppose.”
“You have every right, Lady Jennings, to know all about Miss Davison’s movements,” answered he frankly; “but as I feel that you are asking me questions to which she herself has given you an insufficient answer, I feel, don’t you see, as if I would rather not say more than this: that I met her not far from where I had left her before, and that I understood she had been detained on business connected with her work.”
He felt, as he said this, that he wished it were not so true as he feared it was.
Lady Jennings half smiled. She approved of his attitude, but remained unsatisfied with that of her protégé.
“She works too hard,” said Gerard suddenly after a silence. “I have noticed a great change in her looks. Her face now has a worried expression. I think she wants a long rest, and I wish she could take it; but I suppose while she is earning so much it’s impossible.”
The old lady turned upon him with a strange look.
“Yes, I suppose she does earn a great deal,” she said rather dryly. “She seems to spend a great deal, at any rate.”
“Yes. If she supports her mother and sister,” said Gerard valiantly.
But the old lady shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, one may make too much of that,” she said quickly. “She spends money on herself too. She dresses magnificently. It wouldn’t have been thought proper when I was young, for an unmarried girl to spend so much on her clothes. However, things are altered now, I suppose!”