This sounded reasonable enough, yet she could but think that since Sunday he had studiously avoided being alone with her. If he asked her to drive or walk with him, he secured Pamela’s company before the excursion was planned.
“We must show you the country,” he said to his niece.
Mildred told him of the threatened incursion from Riverdale as they sat at luncheon with Pamela.
“I hope you don’t mind my receiving Mrs. Hillersdon,” she said.
“No, my dear Mildred, I think it would take a much worse woman than Mrs. Hillersdon to do you any harm, or Pamela either. Whatever her early history may have been, she has made Tom Hillersdon an excellent wife, and she has been a very good friend to the poor. I should not have cared for you to cultivate Mrs. Hillersdon, or the society she brings round her, at Riverdale—”
“Sir Henry says they have people from the music-halls,” interjected Pamela, in an awe-stricken voice.
“But if Mrs. Hillersdon likes to come here with her clerical star—”
“Don’t call him a star, George. He is highly gifted, and people have chosen to make him the fashion, but he is the most single-hearted and simple-minded man I ever met. No popularity could spoil him. I feel that if he holds out the hand of friendship to Mrs. Hillersdon, she must be a good woman.”
“Let her come, Mildred, only don’t let her coming open the door to intimacy. I would not have my wife the friend of any woman with a history.”
“And yet there are histories in most lives, George, and there is sometimes a mystery.”