She turned away, making a transparent little pretence of requiring a hand-screen from the mantelpiece, and, having got it, she too sat down, and fell to examining a wretched little daub of a picture upon it most minutely.
“This is very badly done,” she observed, irrelevantly. “Dolly did it, and made it up elaborately into this screen because it was such a sight. It is just like Dolly, to make fun and joke at her own mistakes. She has n't a particle of talent for drawing. She did this once when Griffith thought he was going to get into something that would bring him money enough to allow of their being married. She made a whole lot of little mats and things to put in their house when they got it, but Griffith did n't get the position, so they had to settle down again.”
“Good Heavens!” ejaculated Gowan.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
He moved a trifle uneasily in his chair. He had not meant to speak aloud.
“An unintentional outburst, Mollie,” he said. “A cheerful state of affairs, that.”
“What state of affairs?” she inquired. “Oh, you mean Dolly's engagement. Well, of course, it has been a long one; but then, you see, they like each other very much. Aimée was only saying this afternoon that they cared for each other more now than they did at first.”
“Do they?” said Gowan, and for the time being lapsed into silence.
“It's a cross-grained sort of fortune that seems to control us in this world, Mollie,” he said, at length.
Mollie stared at the poor little daub on her hand-screen and met his philosophy indifferently enough.