“I want to ask you about Miss Consinor,” he said, after he had been warmly greeted, for they were good friends and she was glad he had come.
“Aneth is very unhappy,” was the sober reply.
“I can understand her humiliation, of course,” he continued, with a sigh; “although I hoped she would be brave, and not take the unfortunate circumstance too much to heart.”
“She is young,” answered Mrs. Everingham, evasively, “and cannot view these things as composedly as we do. Moreover, you must remember that Lord Consinor’s trouble touches her more deeply than anyone else.”
“Unless it is the viscountess,” he suggested.
“Oh, the poor viscountess knows nothing of it! She passes her time in an exclusive consideration of her own ailments, and will scarcely see her own daughter at all. Do you know, Gerald, I sometimes wonder how the child can be so sweet and womanly when her surroundings are so dreadful.”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “Consinor has always borne a doubtful reputation at home, and in past years Roane’s life has also been more or less disgraceful. But the old fellow seems to be conducting himself very properly since he came to Egypt, and it is possible he has reformed his ways.”
She did not reply at once, but sat musing until she asked, with startling abruptness:
“Gerald, do you love Aneth?”
He flushed and stammered in his endeavor to find words to reply. Since his interview with Kāra he had confessed to himself that he did love Aneth; but that another should discover his secret filled the big fellow with confusion.