"And it was only last night that you called me preposterous!" laughed Dorothy. "Really, Aunt Helen, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. I think you are the most absurd creature in the world. Do you love him?"
"I can even go so far as to say that I think I do," said Mrs. Wynyard, without a break in her gravity. "I have all the symptoms,—palpitation of the heart, a morbid craving for Shelley and chocolate caramels, a tendency to wake up singing, and a failing for flattening my nose against the window-pane for twenty minutes at a stretch without saying a word to my poor old aunt, on the mere chance that he may be coming down the avenue."
The blush which Dorothy paid as tribute to this subtle innuendo came near to rivaling one of young Nisbet's celebrated performances in the same line.
"You're making fun of me," she said reproachfully.
"I, my dear?—not the least in the world. It's all as true as the gospel according to St. Valentine. I've told you first because we're not only aunt and niece, but the very best friends possible besides, and I knew you would like to hear the news before any one else. Colonel Broadcastle is by all odds the finest man I know,—I won't even except John Barclay, much as I admire him. He has paid me a very great honor. I respect him tremendously; I trust him absolutely. These alone are good reasons; but there's a better one,—so much better that nothing else really has any bearing on the subject. Can you guess?"
"Yes," said Dorothy softly, "you just love him. Isn't that it?"
"Exactly. It's a curious thing, this love. There may be every reason why one should marry a man, his own wish included, and yet one doesn't. There may be no reason at all, so far as outsiders can see, and yet one does! I've known a woman to throw over one suitor who had everything in his favor—money, character, position—and accept another who had none of these advantages—because she liked the way he parted his hair! That's the way it goes. It's the most illogical thing in the world, if we except the stock market and other women's gowns. And then, when it's all arranged, his friends wonder what she could have seen in him, and her friends what he could have seen in her! But I'm wandering from the subject. Seriously, Dorothy dear, I love him very sincerely, and I have been more happy than I can say ever since I found out that it wasn't going to be one of those one-sided love-affairs which assure the incomes of the poets and the lawyers. And now,—confidence for confidence, Dorothy!"
"Aunt Helen! I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, Dorothy! 'I don't know what you mean' is one of those phrases like 'Not at home' and 'Yours very sincerely,' which are white lies on the face of them. I don't want to force your confidence. We all have what our friends recognize as our private affairs, with the accent—worse luck!—on the pry! But this is very different. I'm very fond of you, as you know, and my interest is far from being vulgar curiosity. Of a woman's five cardinal failings—inquisitiveness, extravagance, vanity, vacillation, and loquacity—I'm guiltless of all except the last and most innocent. But don't we all need to talk at times? Don't we all long for a trustworthy confidante? Aren't our little secrets often like precious liquors?—if we don't make use of them, share them with our friends, they either ferment and sour, or else lose all their sweetness and significance by slow evaporation."
"You would draw confidence from a stone," said Dorothy, with a little smile, "but what have I to tell you?"