The snigger with which Collingwood received this (he had been listening, but it was Mrs. Badgerly’s fault, she pitched her voice too high) was drowned in an exclamation from the Judge.
“Ah-ha, Mrs. Badgerly, there you have your riposte. You must not try fencing with Miss Ponsonby. Did I not tell you long ago that she was clever, far too clever for you or me? But she is kind, too. She is too generous to take you at your word, though she does not mind countering with you for the pure skill of it.”
Charlotte’s response was a somewhat drawn smile as she moved away. Mrs. Badgerly, though taken aback, was not routed. She still felt that the sinews of war were in her hands, and, until the close of her visit, she made a series of demands upon the nurse which could not courteously be refused, but which kept that unfortunate always waiting upon her. She reserved a few arrows till her departure.
“Dear nurse,” she said, laying a hand on Miss Ponsonby’s arm, “I have been a dreadful nuisance, but I must be forgiven. People are so good to me. They always do forgive me. You will—I know you will. You look so tired, dear nurse. Won’t you let me send the carriage for you some evening when I am not going out? I am sure you ought to be rewarded in Heaven for the sacrifices you make on earth. Are you always occupied at this hour?—the only time when Manila is agreeable?”
Martin Collingwood, who was even more obtuse than the generality of men in matters where women’s finesse is concerned, took these feminine taunts at their face value. They moderated the resentment which, at first, the obvious prosperity and self-confidence of the visitor had aroused. He had anathematized her with the favorite adjective of democracy: he had mentally labelled her “stuck up.” But the tenor of the conversation went far to remove that impression. Its delicate thrusts, its cruel taunts, he missed; but the unvarnished effrontery of it reminded him, save for a flavor of smartness which he relished but could not define, of the frankness of some of the young ladies who had contributed to his discarded philosophy.
Nevertheless, he gloried somewhat inconsistently in Miss Ponsonby’s ill concealed reprobation. Her spunkiness (his own word, dear reader) delighted him as a further evidence of that holiness which was essential to his madonna. The remembrance of his stolen kiss flowed back to him, and he lay alternately quaking and enraptured at the thought of his own boldness.
Miss Ponsonby put aside Mrs. Badgerly’s thanks and declined her carriage. She went about her evening duties with a kind of startled grace like some nerve-tense creature, ready to leap at a sound. Not a single glance fell Collingwood’s way.
But at nine o’clock, when lights were to go out, the necessity of administering medicine to Judge Barton made her bear down on their little ward with a tray. She was very self-possessed, so much so that the keen man of the world guessed that her late encounter had been more trying than she was willing for him to know.
Still, the motive which made him utter a word or two of apology for his guest was not wholly kind. Miss Ponsonby had snubbed his friend, and to do that was to impugn the greatness of the man himself.
“I am afraid that my caller gave you a great deal of trouble,” he said.