"You will miss your niece?" he said, declining a place at the table, to which she had moved a chair.
"Yes, I'm sure!" she answered. "I say now it's a pity she didn't go with her father last October. Going in a vessel by herself, oh, dear! I say I wouldn't have got accustomed to having her with me if she'd gone with her father. Though that's neither here nor there!"
"Yes, I think you may believe you'll be missed, Miss Cheriton," he said.
"I say it's very odd she couldn't be an actress as she wanted," continued Mrs. Baines. "Seems so unfortunate with all the trouble that she took. But lor, my dear, we can't see what lies ahead of us, and perhaps it's all for the best! I say perhaps it's all for the best, Mr. Heriot, eh? Dear Mamie may be meant to do something different—writing, or such like; it's not for us to say."
"Have you been writing again?" asked Heriot, turning to the girl.
"A little," she said bitterly. "My vanity dies hard—and Aunt Lydia has encouraged me."
Heriot looked a reproach; her tone hurt him, though he understood of what it was the outcome.
"I should be glad if you had encouragement," he replied; "I think you need it now."
But it hurt him, also, to discuss her pain in the presence of the intolerable third. He knew that if he remained to supper there would be a preparatory quarter of an hour in which he was alone with her; and it was for this quarter of an hour that he hungered, conscious that during the opening of the lobster-tin two destinies would be determined.
"That's right, Mr. Heriot," said Mrs. Baines placidly. "I'm glad to hear you say so. That's what I've been telling her. I say she mustn't be disheartened. Why, it's surprising, I'm sure, how much seems to be thought of people who write stories and things nowadays; they seem to make quite a fuss of them, don't they? And I'm certain dear Mamie could write if she put her mind to it. I was reading in the paper, Tit-Bits, only last week, that there was a book called Robert Ellis, or some such name, that made the author quite talked about. Now, I read the piece out to you, dear, didn't I? A book about religion, it was, by a lady; and I'm sure dear Mamie knows as much about religion as anyone."