“Oh, he’s dangerous, he’s dangerous, I daresay,” agreed her sister, “but in our affair I was the sinner. Listen, Mary.” And she told her story, ending oracularly, “So you see!”
Mrs Maxwell was looking at her queerly.
“Yes, I see,” she said at last. “I’m beginning to put things together. And,” she went on, recovering herself with a laugh, “that always happens after I hear about Cesare.”
Teresa was too much interested and excited to notice anything unusual in Mary Maxwell’s manner. Mrs Brodrick, more experienced, watched her without asking questions.
“Perhaps we might manage to do something for the boy through Peppina?” Teresa suggested eagerly. “I needn’t show.”
“I think you had better leave it alone,” Mrs Maxwell replied slowly. “But I’ll ask my husband,” she added, noticing the young marchesa’s disappointment.
“Oh, he’ll say the same. Men do. Please remember, Mary, that it would take a weight off my mind.”
“I’ll remember. I’ll do all I can.” Mrs Maxwell promised so lavishly that Mrs Brodrick was certain nothing was meant to come of it. And she was right, for nothing came of it, though Mrs Maxwell kept her promise to remember.
“I don’t like it,” she said to her husband in the evening when they were alone, and he was admiring a cleverly blackened and altogether worthless picture, which he had picked up as a great bargain that day, at ten times its actual value.
“You know nothing about it,” he returned in an affronted tone. “The light and shade—”