When Agatha sat down Ledward went off. For a young man he was rather fat; but he was a handsome fellow and marked by a cultivated urbanity. Agatha let him go and turned to Evelyn. “You’re loyal,” she said. “I thought you plucky!”
“Kit’s my lover. I promised to marry him when he makes good.”
“Then the stipulation was not, if he made good?”
“Sometimes you’re like Jasper Carson; one doubts if you are kind.”
“I’m Kit’s sister; perhaps I’m shabbily jealous,” Agatha replied.
“Oh, well, I’m going to be frank. Mrs. Carson hates Kit and mother’s afraid of her; she punishes people who do not agree. I really think I was noble, because when we got Kit’s last letter I was annoyed. I felt he had thrown away another chance.”
Agatha’s look got sympathetic. “Since to go cost him something, I expect he went because he was convinced he ought to go.”
“It’s possible,” Evelyn agreed in a moody voice. “Kit’s romantic and sometimes I’d sooner he was selfish. We don’t yet altogether know why he gave up his post at the shipyard; but, if he had thought only for himself, he need not have done so. Now I wonder whether he has not again allowed his rash generosity to carry him away.”
Agatha had speculated about something like that. Evelyn knew her lover, but it looked as if she did not approve. In the circumstances, for her to do so would perhaps be hard.
“Sometimes I feel Kit does not think of me,” Evelyn resumed, and although she blushed her look was calculating. “We are poor and I hate poverty. The proper plan was to make a good marriage. Yet I stuck to Kit. To talk about it jars, but I’m human and I’m bothered. For one thing, mother indulged me although she knew I was foolish, and I’d hate to feel Kit had disappointed her.”