Fully half an hour passed before Dudley contrived to bring the conversation round to Rachel Simpson's departure.
"And has Miss Maclean gone to America too?" he said indifferently, with his eyes fixed on the curling wreaths of tobacco-smoke.
"Oh, bless my soul, no!" cried Mr Cookson, slapping his visitor on the knee. "Did you never hear that story? It was excellent,—excellent! Where do you think I saw Miss Maclean last? Driving in Hyde Park in as elegant a carriage as ever I wish to see. There was another lady with her—leaning back, you know, with their lace and their parasols,"—Mr Cookson attempted somewhat unsuccessfully to demonstrate the attitude of the ladies in question,—"and a young man riding alongside. A tip-top turn-out altogether, I warrant you."
Dudley's face darkened, but he waited for his host to go on.
"I had got wind of it before she left us," Mr Cookson continued complacently, "from something Colonel Lawrence let drop, and we had her here to dinner; a fine girl, a fine girl! I remember when I was a boy hearing what a successful man her grandfather was; but her people had been out of the place so long, one never thought of one of them coming back. Matilda knew about it all along, it seems; and she and Miss Maclean were fast friends, but she kept it very close."
"I found it out by accident," Matilda said with dignity; "but no one with any perception could see Miss Maclean and question that she was a lady."
"I quite agree with you," Dudley said gravely; "but did Miss Maclean confide to you what induced her to come masquerading down here?"
He regretted the words the moment they were spoken, but it was too late to recall them.
Matilda's face flushed.
"If you knew Miss Maclean at all," she said, "you would be ashamed to say that. She was not always wondering what people would think of somebody's cousin, or somebody else's niece; she was her very own self. The fact that she had grand relations did not make Miss Simpson any the less her cousin. It was as easy to Miss Maclean to claim kindred with a vulgar woman in a shop as with a fine lady in a ballroom."