“Not many, if I’m to make a living by it, Gerty,” Allestree retorted smiling.
“A living? Goodness, if I could only get your prices!” Gerty raised her eyes and hands to heaven; “I’m a poor thing worth a dollar an hour and expenses.”
“Raise your rates, Gerty, you’re indispensable,” said Rose.
“Indeed I’m not, there are lots of others waiting for my shoes. Good-bye, dear children; I’m going now to write two dozen notes, pay fifty bills and interview a caterer and a florist,” and she kissed her hand to them as she withdrew, mischievously aware that she had coaxed Rose into an interview with Allestree; like Judge Temple, Gerty thought happiness lay in this direction and in no other.
As she disappeared Rose left her chair and went to look at Margaret’s portrait with dreamy eyes. “I must go, too,” she said, “I only stopped for a moment on my way. I’ve been riding by the river and through the White Lot. I kept thinking of those lines, do you remember them, Robert?—
“‘Hast thou seen by daisied leas,
And by rivers flowing
Lilac-ringlets which the breeze
Loosens, lightly blowing!’”
“I’ve been longing to be out all day myself,” he said soberly enough, “to see the ‘lilac-ringlets,’ but I must finish this; in some way I have grown to believe that Margaret will never again be quite the Margaret we have known so long. I wanted to be sure of this expression.”