"I had n't quite made up my mind to write to Felicity yet, but now I will, this very night. She ought not to let such a girl stay in the house. But I 'm afraid my writing will only make her determined—she 's so perverse."
The words only completed his mystification. It now occurred to him that this might be merely the excessive virtue of a New Englander, that Mrs. Parr merely wished to save her friend from the mortification of a scandal belowstairs in her house. Her prejudice against Emmet was sufficient to explain her belief in his bad intentions regarding Lena Harpster.
"On second thoughts I sha'n't do it," she declared, with a curious gleam in her eyes; then she closed her lips firmly, as if to dismiss the subject.
Leigh could only guess why she had changed her mind, and had suddenly decided to let matters take their course. Assuming that she knew nothing of Emmet's true relationship with Felicity and thought merely that her friend was infatuated with him, it was possible that she might even welcome a moral breakdown on Emmet's part, provided it would open Felicity's eyes to his true quality. He was tempted to believe that Mrs. Parr would willingly let Lena be sacrificed to accomplish this result. The various possibilities that lay concealed behind his companion's enigmatical features were bewildering, and the subject was too delicate for further probing. As the fine vista of Birdseye Avenue opened up before them, he turned the subject by remarking that Christmas never seemed so truly Christmas as in New England. The dictum was a happy one.
"Yes," she assented with fervour, "and is n't Warwick beautiful? I never go away, even to Europe, without realising when I come back that Warwick is the most beautiful place in the world. Thank God, I was born and brought up in New England!"
"And thank God, I was n't!" he retorted.
"What do you mean by that?" she demanded, turning upon him with shocked asperity.
"I merely mean that my view would have been limited for life to the vista that may be obtained from the steps of the First Church—not that it is n't a fine one, in its way."
The genial banter of his tone softened her resentment to curiosity.
"Where in Heaven's name were you brought up?" she asked.