"At least he needn't look as if he expected to be hung!"
"Oh, that's natural enough, my dear," Macclesfield retorted, with a chuckle. "Mrs. Billop's got him in tow."
"He looked just the same before she got him, which shows where he is! It makes me indignant—not on his account, of course you know that! He's not half good enough for Rachel and he ought to be down on his knees to get her; but he's mad about Eva. He's been watching Eva all the time; any one can see it."
The doctor smiled grimly. "She'll bear watching."
"Oh, she's pretty enough, and, heavens, what a gown! Her clothes cost a fortune. It doesn't seem fair, and I've told her so, to be so pretty and to have so much money to make you more so."
"You can't imagine all the compliments Pamela's paying you, Eva," said the old doctor, as their hostess came past them in one of her excursions across the room.
"It's because I'm so happy over dear Rachel's happiness," she replied, with a beaming glance.
Belhaven, who heard this, regarded her with sudden amazement. There was always a time when Eva's lovers were amazed, usually just before they were disillusioned, and Belhaven found it difficult, at the moment, to meet her on her own ground. What had been to him a kind of exhibition, in which he was compelled to pose as the unwilling dancing-bear, was apparently an occasion of joy and relief to her. He did not appreciate the fact that, having saved her own skin, Eva was not keenly aware that his was gone. And if he caught a look of exasperation on Astry's face, it did not enlighten him to the fact that Astry had traveled that road before him, had asked for bread and received a stone.
But Dr. Macclesfield, ruminating on Pamela's remarks, was not so easily misled. He had known the two sisters all their lives and he observed Eva shrewdly.
"I wonder what the little devil's been up to?" he thought. "She's acting a little more elaborately than usual; she's aware herself that she's acting, and as a rule it's a second nature. She never did anything natural in her life except to have chicken-pox when she was seven."