John Fausset saw their affection, and was delighted. That loving union between the girl and the child seemed to solve all difficulties. Fay was no longer a stranger. She was a part of the family, merged in the golden circle of domestic love. Mrs. Fausset looked on with jaundiced eye.
“If one could only believe it were genuine!” she sighed.
“Genuine! which of them do you suppose is pretending? Not Mildred, surely?”
“Mildred! No, indeed. She is truth itself.”
“Why do you suspect Fay of falsehood?”
“My dear John, I fear—I only say I fear—that your protégée is sly. She has a quiet self-contained air that I don’t like in one so young.”
“I don’t wonder she is self-contained. You do so little to draw her out.”
“Her attachment to Mildred has an exaggerated air—as if she wanted to curry favour with us by pretending to be fond of our child,” said Mrs. Fausset, ignoring her husband’s remark.
“Why should she curry favour? She is not here as a dependent—though she is made to wear the look of one sometimes more than I like. I have told you that her future is provided for; and as for pretending to be fond of Mildred, she is the last girl to pretend affection. She would have been better liked at school if she had been capable of pretending. There is a wild, undisciplined nature under that self-contained air you talk about.”
“There is a very bad temper, if that is what you mean. Bell has complained to me more than once on that subject.”