“I am sure I know nothing,” answered Mrs. Newt; “I only know that Mr. Newt is furious.”
“Perfectly lunatic,” added Aunt Dagon, in full view of Mrs. Dinks.
“Pity, pity!” returned Mrs. Dinks, with an air of compassionate unconcern; “because these things can always be so easily settled. I hope Mr. Newt won’t suffer himself to be disturbed. Every thing will come right.”
“What does Mr. Dinks say?” feebly inquired Mrs. Newt.
“I really don’t know,” replied Mrs. Dinks, with a cool air of surprise that any body should care what he thought—which made Mrs. Dagon almost envious of her enemy, and which so impressed Mrs. Newt, who considered the opinion of her husband as the only point of importance in the whole affair, that she turned pale.
“I mean that his mind is so engrossed with other matters that he rarely attends to the domestic details,” added Mrs. Dinks, who had no desire of frightening any of her new relatives. “Have you been to see Fanny yet?”
“No,” returned Mrs. Newt, half-sobbing again, “I have only just heard of it; and—and—I don’t think Mr. Newt would wish me to go.”
Mrs. Dinks raised her eyebrows, and again touched her face gently with the handkerchief. Mrs. Dagon rubbed her glasses and waited, for she knew very well that Mrs. Dinks had not yet discovered what she had come to learn. The old General was not deceived by the light skirmishing.
“I am sorry not to have seen Mr. Newt before he went down town,” began Mrs. Dinks, after a pause. “But since we must all know these matters sooner or later—that is to say, those of us whose business it is”—here she glanced at Mrs. Dagon—“you and I, my dear Mrs. Newt, may talk confidentially. How much will your husband probably allow Fanny until Alfred comes into his property?”
Mrs. Dinks leaned back and folded her shawl closely around her, and Mrs. Dagon hemmed and smiled a smile of perfect incredulity.