"True. But you might have discovered if she was—however, apparently she has no immediate intention of flying away."
Reassured on the point, Mrs. Purcell let well alone. She had no conception that anything could be hid from her, and thought she divined that while all had gone well, even beyond her hopes so far, the two whom she would fain have seen made one, had restricted their tête-à-tête to the discussion of conventional and superficial topics. Val had even called Leonore "pompous". That meant the young lady was aware of her own value, and if so——?
There remained however this comfort; in her present situation the youthful widow could not go into society, and Val, being first in the field, might, to borrow his own phraseology, catch the hare before the other hounds were on the scent.
Val on his part chuckled likewise. Secretive as the grave could Val be when he chose; and one thing was clear to him: Leonore was trying to play the part required of her by her family and the world, and he alone knew that it was a part.
He would not betray her. Not all his grandmother's wiles should draw from him a picture of that confiding little face—sorrowful enough at times certainly, and yet not sorrowful in the approved fashion, not hopeless, not utterly cast down. "Just looking as if she needed some one to be kind to her," ruminated he; "and when she laughed—" he paused and wagged his head, "Lord, it was a good thing nobody but me heard Leo laugh!"
CHAPTER VI.
A REVELATION.
"I think—" said Miss Boldero one day about a fortnight after this—"it appears to me that Leonore might now be permitted to see the rector?"—and she looked round to take the opinion of her sisters. Their father was not present.
Perhaps the speaker had awaited such an opportunity, possibly what appeared to be a very simple suggestion cost her an effort,—at any rate, something of constraint in her air and accents arrested the attention of the person most concerned, and Leo, wondering what so formal a preamble portended, was so taken aback by the climax that she did what she alone of the Bolderos ever did, she giggled.