"Oh, Miss Rachel!"
"And," Rachel risked adding this, "I'll speak to Mrs. Astry about Zélie."
Bantry looked at her, almost indignantly, over the top of her crumpled apron. Eva had not been in her thoughts, or Zélie either. In the kitchen, that melting-pot of our social makeshifts, they said that Miss Leven was marrying Belhaven to hush up an imminent scandal, and the old Scotchwoman, in whose heart was a kind of fierce clan loyalty, longed to rescue her favorite, to warn her, but there was something about Rachel, an aloofness, a distinction, that set a gulf between them. Bantry dared not tell her.
"Besides," Rachel went on in a low voice, "I don't want you to listen to all this talk; keep it from the servants. Whatever it is, it's false, but falsehoods are often believed; don't listen to them."
Bantry bent suddenly over Rachel's evening gown, folding it with careful hands, her eyes still full of tears.
"Very well, Miss," she said, "I—I've only told you the truth."
"I know it; I won't forget that, Bantry."
"It's only right for you to believe me, Miss."
"I always believe you!"
Bantry's answer was inaudible; she bent low over the clothes on the lounge to allow Rachel to pass without seeing that she was still crying, for Bantry was storming in her heart against Mrs. Astry. It had always been so, she told herself. Eva had always traded on her sister's generosity and abused her affection.