"There's an end of it, then," she repeated coldly, rather bitterly. "We agree to part. You might easily have been kinder and nicer to me; but I bear you no ill-will. I suppose you can't help being disagreeable. Certainly it's nothing new.—Only, Nannie, though I don't want to upset you or make a quarrel, there is something I should like to be quite clear about, because, I own, I've been half afraid lately that you were getting yourself into a silly state over Adrian Savage."
She stood upright, looking full at Joanna.
"I know you've corresponded with him a good deal, so, of course, you may know already. Colonel Haig told me. He met her in Paris, on his way to Carlsbad, and was awfully smitten with her. Has Cousin Adrian ever spoken to you about Madame St. Leger?"
Silence followed. A distinct menace was perceptible in Joanna's tone when she at last answered.
"I have never attempted to force myself into Adrian's confidence. To do so would be the worst possible taste under existing circumstances. I should never dream of asking him questions regarding his—his former friends."
"Then you don't know about Madame St. Leger, Nannie?"
"I do not know, nor have I the least wish to hear anything respecting any acquaintance of Adrian's, except what he himself may choose to tell me."
Joanna spoke violently, her back against the wall, both in the literal and figurative sense.
"That's all very proper, but I really think you ought to hear this. In the end it may save everybody a lot of misunderstanding and worry. I'm pretty sure Colonel Haig meant me to pass the information on to you. That was why he told me."
Joanna stretched her arms out on either side, the palms of her hands toward the wall. As her fingers worked, opening and closing, her nails gritted upon the rough surface of the brick.