Two tears gathered in the kind green eyes, tears of joy at her dear girl's happiness, but with a tincture of sadness too. With a somewhat unaccustomed flash of imagination, she looked into the future and saw herself lonely in the flat, or with another girl who could never be to her what Rita was.
She looked up at Rita again, trying to smile through her tears.
What she saw astounded her.
Rita's face was flushed. A knot of wrinkles had sprung between her eyebrows. Her mouth was mutinous, her brown eyes lit with an angry and puzzled light.
"I don't understand you, Ethel," she said in a voice which was so cold and unusual that the other girl was dumb.—"What on earth do you mean?"
"Mean, dear," Ethel faltered. "I don't quite understand. I thought you meant—I thought . . ."
"What did you think?"
"I thought you meant that you were engaged to him, Cupid darling!"
"Engaged!—Why Gilbert is married."
Ethel glanced quickly at the flowers, at the photograph upon the piano. Things seemed going round and round her—the heat, that was it—"But the letters!" she managed to say at length, "and, and—oh, Cupid, what are you doing? He can't be a good man. I'm certain of it, dear! I'm older than you are. I know more about things. You don't realise,—but how should you poor darling! He can't be a good man! Rita, does his wife know?"