Kitty blushed becomingly; this was her lead. “He’s a kind of partner in the lumber scheme; I’m going to marry him. He’s as firm a friend of Mr. Vane’s as any one. There’s a reason for that—I was in a very tight place once, left without money in a desolate settlement where there was nothing I could do, when Mr. Vane helped me. But, perhaps, that wouldn’t interest you.”
For a moment her doubts still clung to their hold in Evelyn’s mind; and then she suddenly drove the last of them out, with a stinging sense of humiliation. She could not distrust this girl; it was Jessie’s suggestion that was incredible.
“It would interest me very much,” she said.
Kitty told her story effectively, but with caution, laying most stress upon Vane’s compassion for the child and her invalid mother. She was rather impressed by Miss Chisholm, but she supposed the latter was endowed with some of the failings common to human nature.
Evelyn listened to her with confused emotions and a softened face. She was convinced of the truth of the simple tale, and the thought of Vane’s keeping his monied friends and directors waiting in Vancouver in order that a tired child might rest and gather shells upon a sunny beach stirred her deeply. It was so characteristic; exactly what she would have expected him to do.
“Thank you,” she said quietly when Kitty had finished; and then, flinging off the last of her reserve, she asked a number of questions about Drayton and Celia’s affairs. Before her visitors left all three were on friendly terms, but Evelyn was glad when they took their departure.
She wanted to be alone to think, though, in spite of the relief she was conscious of, her thoughts were far from pleasant, and foremost among them figured a crushing sense of shame. She had wickedly misjudged a man who had given her many proofs of the fineness of his character; the evil she had imputed to him was born of her own perverted imagination. She was no better than the narrow-minded, conventional Pharisees she detested, who were swift to condemn out of the uncleanness of their self-righteous hearts. Then, as she began to reason, it flashed upon her that she was, perhaps, wronging herself. Her mind had been cunningly poisoned by an utterly unscrupulous and wholly detestable woman, and she flamed out into a fit of imperious anger against Jessie. She had a hazy idea that this was not altogether reasonable, since she was to some extent fastening the blame she deserved upon another person; but it did not detract from the comfort the indulgence in her indignation brought her.
When she had grown calmer, Mrs. Nairn came in, and Mrs. Nairn was a discerning lady. It was not difficult to lead Evelyn on to speak of her visitors, for the girl’s pride was broken and she felt in urgent need of sympathy; but when she had described the interview she felt impelled to avoid any discussion of its more important issues.
“I was surprised at the girl’s manner,” she concluded. “It must have been embarrassing to them; but they were really so delicate over it, and they had so much courage.”
Mrs. Nairn smiled. “Although one has travelled with third-rate strolling companies and the other has waited in an hotel? Weel, maybe your surprise was natural. Ye cannot all at once get rid of the ideas and prejudices ye were brought up with.”