“No; she takes no part in it, mon ami, except in so far as it affects her brother and compels her to live in a sad little villa on the Dunes.”
“And you—you are interested?”
“Most assuredly. I have even given my mite. I am interested in”—she paused and shrugged her shoulders—“in you, since you ask me, in Dorothy, and in Mr. Roden. He gave the flowers at which you are so earnestly looking, by the way.”
“Ah!” said Cornish, politely.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Vansittart, with a passing smile. “He is kind enough to give me flowers from time to time. You never gave me flowers, Mr. Cornish, in the olden times.”
“Because I could not afford good ones.”
“And you would not offer anything more reasonable?”
“Not to you,” he answered.
“But of course that was long ago.”
“Yes. I am glad to hear that you know Miss Roden. It will make the little villa on the Dunes less sad. The atmosphere of malgamite is not cheerful. One sees it at its best in a London drawing-room. It is one of the many realities which have an evil odour when approached too closely.”