"You have seen him already?"
"Accidentally, yes. He did not know I had returned, and came to see Richard. He is quite intimate with Richard now. He entered the parlor and found me there. I do not think he was glad to see me. I left him very soon."
She drew off her glove, and smoothed it out upon her knee, with a thin and fragile little hand upon which the rings hung loosely. Agnes bent forward and involuntarily laid her own hand upon it.
"Dear," she said.
Bertha hurriedly lifted her eyes.
"What I wish to say," she said, "was that the week after next we give a little dinner to Senator Blundel, and I wanted to be sure I might count on you. If you are there—and Colonel Tredennis—you will give it an unprofessional aspect, which is what we want. But perhaps you will refuse to come?"
"Bertha," said Mrs. Sylvestre, "I will be with you at any time—at all times—you wish for or need me."
"Yes," said Bertha, reflecting upon her a moment, "I think you would."
She got up and kissed her lightly and without effusion, and then Agnes rose, too, and they stood together.
"You were always good," Bertha said. "I think life has made you better instead of worse. It is not so always. Things are so different—everything seems to depend upon circumstances. What is good in me would be far enough from your standards to be called wickedness."