"I did, my dear," returned Mrs. Fellowes gravely. "I don't want to discourage you, but I fear for the present at least we can't reach that bit of stony ground. And if you will not think me hard, I should advise you to leave Miss Leila Baltus severely alone."
Mrs. Fellowes was of the type that "hopeth all things"; her advice, therefore, took Hester by surprise, but her great respect for her opinion on all matters made her wish to discuss the subject further. Just then, however, the conversation was interrupted by the gong sounding for tiffin.
As Mrs. Fellowes passed through the drawing-room on her young hostess's arm there was a shadow on her face which had not left it since the appearance of the mysterious visitor, and which returned to it in after hours when she recalled the unpleasant incident.
Meanwhile Leila Baltus with rapid steps had left the Rayners' compound, and stood glancing up and down the road as if in search of someone. Presently she perceived an elderly woman lurking behind a jungly hedge, and joined her, saying bitterly:
"No manner of use—only wasted our shoe leather! You were quite out of your reckoning, mother, in thinkin' we'd catch him at tiffin time. Alf ain't so easy caught, worse luck!"
"So you haven't seen him?" said the older woman, with a dispirited sigh. "Why, but this was to be your trump card, you boasted—and it's failed!"
"Not quite, for I've been inside the verandah, and seen her in her own house that should have been mine. I could have put a knife into her, for all that she's a pleasant, soft-spoken lady. Somehow I didn't get my tongue proper loosed on her! But I hate her, yes, I hate her, all the more that she's so fair and prettee"; and the girl raised a clenched fist and shook it in the air.
"Ay, you mind, Leila, how he twitted me with our being black half-castes? But I'll be even with Alfred Rayner yet!" cried the old woman shrilly, swaying from very weariness as she tramped along the hot, dusty road.
"Come, mother, I'll tell you what she was dressed in. It'll shorten the road," said the girl, with an effort to be cheerful, as she cast a pitying glance at the stumbling figure by her side, and drew her mother's arm into hers.
"Well, her dress wasn't silk, it wasn't even fine sprigged muslin, but just cotton, think of that—no better than bazaar dungerie, or your own morning wrapper. But, oh, it was such a beautee! It was pale blue, and it had lovelee gathers on the bodice, smockin', I think they call it. You see it in the fashion plates. It's my belief I could imitate thatt if only money weren't so hard to get," she wound up with a sigh.