There was another pause.
“How beautiful Mrs Hallam grows! So pale, and sweet, and grave. She looks to me always, Mr Thickens, like some lovely lily. Dear Millicent, it seems only yesterday that she was married.”
Thickens started and moved uneasily, sending a pang that must have had a jealous birth through Miss Heathery’s breast.
“Seven years ago, Mr Thickens.”
“Six years, eleven months, two weeks, ma’am.”
“Ah, how exact you are, Mr Thickens!”
“Obliged to be, ma’am. Interest to calculate.”
“But she looks thin, and not so happy as I could wish.”
“Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am,” said Thickens, paradoxically.
Again there was an uneasy change, for Mr Thickens’s brow was puckered, and a couple of ridgy wrinkles ran across the top of his head.