“I suppose it is,” answered Turner, stolidly, without turning an eyelash in the direction of Colville. “Perhaps that is why no one has ever asked me to marry them.”
Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence laughed jerkily at this witticism. She laughed again when John Turner rose from his chair to congratulate her, but the laugh suddenly ceased when he raised her hand to his lips with a courtesy which was even in those days dying out of the world, and turned away from him hastily. She stood with her back toward them for a minute or two looking at some flowers on a side table. Then she came back into the middle of the room, all smiles, replacing her handkerchief in her pocket.
“So that is the news I have to tell you,” she said.
John Turner had placidly resumed his chair after shaking hands with Dormer Colville for the second time since luncheon.
“Yes,” he answered, “it is news indeed. And I have a little news to give you. I do not say that it is quite free from the taint of business, but at all events it is news. Like yours, it has the merit of being at first hand, and you are the first to hear it. No one else could tell it to you.”
He broke off and rubbed his chin while he looked apathetically at Colville’s necktie.
“It has another merit, rare enough,” he went on. “It is good news. I think, in fact I may say I am sure, that we shall pull through now and your money will be safely returned to you.”
“I am so glad,” said Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, with a glance at Dormer Colville. “I cannot tell you how glad I am.”
She looked at the banker with bright eyes and the flush still in her cheeks that made her look younger and less sure of herself.
“Not only for my own sake, you know. For yours, because I am sure you must be relieved, and for—well, for everybody’s sake. Tell me all about it, please.” And she pushed her chair sideways nearer to Colville’s.