They were sitting in the drawing-room, with windows open to the ground, and the fading light was insufficient to read by, although both had books.
“Yes, mother,” answered the girl in rather a tired voice, quite forgetting to be cheerful. “I should like to know exactly what you heard.”
“Well, Anna told me,” and there was a whole world of distrust in the little phrase, “that Arthur had asked you to be his wife, and that you had refused without giving a reason.”
“I gave him a reason,” replied Dora; “the best one. I said that I did not love him.”
There was a little pause. The two women looked out on to the quiet lawn. They seemed singularly anxious to avoid looking at each other.
“But that might come, dear; I think it would come.”
“I know it would not,” replied Dora quietly. There was a dreaminess in her voice, as if she were repeating something she had heard or said before.
Suddenly Mrs. Glynde rose from her chair, and going towards her daughter, she knelt on the soft carpet, still afraid to look at her face. There was something suggestive and strange in the attitude, for the elder woman was crouching at the feet of the younger.
“My darling,” she whispered, “I know, I know! I have known all along. But mind, no one else knows, no one suspects! It can never come to you again in this life. Women are like that, it never comes to them twice. To some it never comes at all; think of that, dear, it never comes to them at all! Surely that is worse?”
Dora took the nervous, eager hands in her own quiet grasp and held them still. But she said nothing.