"You must be wondering who I am," said the Beautiful Lady pleasantly. "I ought to have introduced myself sooner. My name is Lady Broadhurst, and I live in Hampshire."
Philip remembered addressing the envelope now. He nodded politely.
"I know," he said. "Plumbley Royal."
"That is right," said Lady Broadhurst. "I have been puzzling as to why you should have thought of writing to me. Where did you come across my address, I wonder."
"It was in an old Red Book," said Philip.
"I see. Still, it is strange that you should have selected me," continued the Beautiful Lady musingly. She seemed perplexed, yet gratified, evidently suspecting the hand of Providence. Philip might have explained that the wonder would have lain less in his visitor's selection than in her omission,—he had sent a copy of Tommy Smith's letter to every widow in the book whose name began with B,—but his mind was working frantically behind a solemn countenance, and he did not answer. He was trying to put himself in Uncle Joseph's place. How would he have treated this intrusion? How would he have parried questions about Tommy Smith? How would he have substantiated the starving curate and his fireless home, in the face of the solid comfort of Holly Lodge and the absolute invisibility of the curate and his emaciated progeny? Would he have dressed up James Nimmo as a curate? Would he have sent out to Finchley Road for a lady to represent the curate's tearful consort? Would he have explained that the curate had just received preferment and gone to live at Berwick-on-Tweed? Possibly; but such feats of imposture were beyond the powers of a slow-witted, inherently honest philogynist of fourteen.
Lady Broadhurst was speaking again, in a low, musical voice, holding out her hands to the blazing fire. Philip noticed that these hands were long and thin, like Peggy's and unlike the hands of the women whom he sometimes encountered sitting in omnibuses or serving in shops. Her feet were tiny, too. In the glow of the fire her eyelashes looked long and wet.
"I was very much touched," she was saying, "by your letter. Your wanting a little girl for a sister came very near home to me; for I have just lost a little girl of my own. She was all I had, Tommy. She was taken from me three months ago.... I suppose we should take our losses as they come, without wincing or questioning the wisdom of God. But I was weak—and selfish. For a long time I refused to bow to his will. I cried out, and would not be comforted...."
The Beautiful Lady's eyes were really glistening now. Presently a tear splashed on to the long white hand. Philip felt strangely uncomfortable. He had been warned by his uncle more than once to beware, above all, of a woman's tears. "Her tears are the biggest gun in her battery," Uncle Joseph had said. But Philip forgot to feel suspicious. He was only intensely sorry for the lady.
Presently she began to speak again, not altogether to Philip.