"Lucy," she observed, "is now and then a little outspoken, but I'm curious as to what she meant when she said that Thorne was not likely to make love to her. Of course, the thing's improbable, anyway, but she spoke as if he had been offered an opportunity."
Alison's face flushed with anger.
"Leaving the fact that she's to marry Winthrop out of the question, the girl must have some self-respect. She would surely never go so far as you suggest."
"Well," smiled her companion, "she might go far enough to place Thorne in an embarrassing position, purely for the sake of the amusement she might derive from it. In fact, when I remember how she laughed, I'm far from sure that she didn't do something of the kind."
Alison sat silent for a minute or two. There was no doubt that she was very angry with Lucy, but she was also troubled by other sensations, among which was a certain envy of the girl's capacity for work that was held of high account in that country. Thorne's attitude and his weary face as he toiled among the sheaves had been very suggestive. He was, she knew, hard-pressed, engaged in a desperate grapple with a task that was generally admitted to be beyond his strength, and she could only stand aside and watch his efforts with wholly ineffective sympathy.
Then she became conscious that Mrs. Farquhar was glancing at her curiously.
"I feel humiliated to-night!" she broke out. "There's so little that seems of the least use to anybody here that I can do; and my abilities scarcely got me food and shelter in England. Isn't it almost a crime that they teach so many of us only fripperies? Were we only made to be taken care of and petted?"
Her companion smiled.
"If it's any consolation, I may point out that we haven't found you useless at the Farquhar homestead, and I can't see why you shouldn't be just as useful presiding over a place of your own. After all, since you raise the question what you were made for, that seems to be the usual destiny, and I haven't found it an unpleasant or ignoble one."
She broke off, and for a minute or two the jolting of the wagon rendered further conversation out of the question.