“No. I am afraid that Malta is not quite the place one would like to take one’s daughter to.”
“That depends, I should imagine, upon the views one may have respecting one’s daughter,” answered the lady of the house carelessly.
At this moment Agatha came in looking fresh and smart in a tweed dress. There was something about her that made people turn in the streets to look at her again. For years she had noted this with much satisfaction. But she was beginning to get a little tired of the homage of the pavement. Those who turned to glance a second time never came back to offer her a heart and a fortune. She was perhaps beginning faintly to suspect that which many of us know - namely, that she who has the admiration of many rarely has the love of one; and if by chance she gets this, she never knows its value and rarely keeps it.
“I was just asking Mrs. Harrington about Malta, dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Ingham-Baker. “It is a nice place, is it not, Marian?”
“I believe it is.”
“And somehow I quite want to go there. I can’t think why,” said Mrs. Ingham-Baker volubly. “It would be so nice to get a little sunshine after these grey skies, would it not, dear?”
Agatha gave a little shiver as she sat down.
“It would be very nice to feel really warm,” she said. “But there is the horrid sea voyage.”
“I dare say you would enjoy that very much after the first two days,” put in Mrs. Harrington.
“Especially if we select a nice large boat--one of those with two funnels?” put in Mrs. Ingham-Baker. “Now I wonder what boat we could go by?”