‘He is a great friend of yours, I find,’ continued Eleanor, looking directly at Magdalen, who made no reply to the words. Eleanor paused a moment, and then took her course. She was really anxious to learn, if she could, the extent of this woman’s influence over her brother; but more than that, to get to know whether she were a sincere woman, or a false one. She would feign a tender interest in Otho’s affairs, and a sisterly solicitude for his welfare. As a matter of fact, she knew nothing of the said affairs, nor whether well or ill might be the word to apply to his spiritual condition. She would try to discover. It was a hardy resolution, with such a woman as Magdalen for her opponent, but want of courage was not one of Eleanor’s defects.
‘It seems so strange,’ she presently went on, in a musing tone, ‘that you, living in the same place and being his friend, must have seen him often, and know him quite well, while I, his own sister, scarcely know anything about him.’
‘You think that is a great loss, I suppose?’
‘Well, yes, I do. I think I ought to know about him—good or bad. It seems to me unnatural that I should not. I wish you would tell me something about him, Miss Wynter. It really seems as though he had left us on purpose that we might discuss him.’
‘Why discuss him at all?’
‘Well,’ said Eleanor with a smile, ‘I don’t think you and I can have many objects of mutual interest to talk about. Otho is one, obviously—my brother and your friend. I think it is most natural to talk about him. From what he said of you, I am sure you must know a great deal of his character and disposition. He is very reserved, I think. I want to get on with him, of course. Can’t you tell me something of his tastes and habits?’
Miss Wynter’s white eyelids drooped, but quivered not. Her fingers flew in and out of the scarlet wool, and the ivory needles made a pleasant, dull clicking. What she thought with cold annoyance was, that Eleanor was impertinent and inquisitive, devoid of tact and savoir faire. (No one knew better than Eleanor herself that her present conduct was scarcely conventional, but she felt that she did not much care what it was, so long as she rode away from Balder Hall possessed of definite views as to Magdalen’s goodness or badness, and she rather hoped the conversation would disclose badness.) If the young woman were put down at once and promptly, Magdalen argued, she might perhaps profit by the lesson; if not, if encouraged in the least, she was almost certain to become very troublesome. So she said—
‘My dear child, you surely do not suppose that because a man comes once or twice a week and chats with one for an hour or two, or even spends a whole afternoon in one’s society, that he necessarily reveals to one anything of his real habits or character?’
‘It depends on what his habits may be, of course,’ said Eleanor with gravity; and, in spite of telling herself that she was acting a part, she felt a vague uneasiness, which vexed her like a coming trouble whenever any question arose of Otho and his doings. It was not the first time she had felt it. Dim reports of his fastness and strange habits had penetrated even to her well-sheltered home with the Stanleys; and more than once her uncle had said to her, ‘My dear, I’m afraid your brother spends a good deal of money in a very reckless way.’
‘It depends on what his habits may be,’ she repeated; ‘but he could not come so often as that and not show something of his character—or disposition, perhaps I should say.’