The answer was unexpected, should have been welcome. Yet it seemed to push Anne or Hugh Forbes to the wall, suggesting that if she were not to blame, he was. Wareham uttered an impatient sigh.
“I cannot conceive what she could object to in Hugh!” he said, the friend uppermost again. Millie was silent. “And yet—women—?” he added tentatively.
She turned back some leaves, under which a cluster of fruit glowed.
“I believe that I am surprised you don’t condemn her with the rest of the world,” he said at last, in order to force an answer.
“How should I? I never saw your friend. Miss Dalrymple has been very nice to me, but I know nothing of her, or of her life.” Millie’s words were hurried. “You asked me if she were right or wrong. How should I know? But if she was ready to brave people’s tongues, either she had never loved him, or she did not love him any more. In either case, when she found it out, she must have been right not to wait until it was too late. That is all I can see clearly, and I dare say, if I knew more, I should not see so much.”
“I believe you are right,” said Wareham admiringly. He was in the condition to find oracles in all that agreed with him. “When you know Miss Dalrymple better, you will be sure you are.”
“Miss Dalrymple is not easily known.”
“Not?”
“Not by women.”
To this man does not object, and Wareham merely pondered over it. Millie moved a little farther off. He followed.