Hal looked into her eyes, with a pleased light in her own.
“You are too generous, but it’s nice to be thought well of by any one like you and Basil. I shall remember it when I am silly enough to be downhearted, and it will cheer me up.”
She had to hurry away then to catch a train, and as she went her mind was full of the thought:
“Why, oh why, had Dudley, in his blindness, wooed the younger sister?”
“Well?” he said, as she entered their sitting-room, where he was reading over the fire. “How did you get on?”
“Oh, splendidly”—trying to throw a little enthusiasm into her voice. “Doris looked amazingly pretty.”
She show a soft light in his eyes, and because it rather maddened her, she hastened to add: “But I see a great change in Basil.”
“Yes?... I wondered if you would. I was afraid he did not seem so well.”
“Dudley”—with sudden seriousness—“when Basil dies, it will just about break Ethel up. She idolises him.”
“I know; but she can hardly wish him to live on if he continues to grow worse.”