“Well, she never begrudges talk, I’ll say that for her,” said Mrs Maxwell, with a lazy laugh. “I’m not so sure that she tells you very much, when all’s said and done.”
“If she’s loyal, I like her the better.”
“Hum! She’s in love. Whether loyalty comes in. However, you’d better tell me what you’d like to know.”
And she listened in silence while Donna Teresa hastily touched on her perplexities.
“You see, Mary,” she ended—“you see you must allow two points. Help is wanted, and it ought to be wise help. What is wise help?”
“You poor thing! If you go about asking that question of all your friends, you will soon have picked up a basketful of ill-assorted scraps. I can’t imagine any two of them agreeing.”
Mrs Maxwell’s shrewd common-sense represented a bucket of water dashed on Teresa’s flame. But she would not give in.
“Scraps are better than nothing,” she retorted. “And Cesare is certainly no friend.”
“No-o,” said Mrs Maxwell, drawling the word, and throwing a log on the fire. Then she sat up and said with decision, “If I were you, I would have nothing to do with Cesare.”
“Why, he’s my chief hope,” laughed Teresa. “So please, Mary, make out from Peppina where he is to be found, or, better still, get her to persuade him to come to speak to me. He must have forgiven me by this time.”