"It was her mother's; what the poor lady traveled on, I suppose. Frida might have been enjoying it all the time, only, you see, there was the Colonel. That's why she wants him to marry Mrs. Fazakerly, though she'd rather die than own it."
"Because she can't trust her motives, trust herself. I never saw a woman fight so shy of herself."
"Then that's what she was thinking of when she said she was afraid of her own feelings."
"Oh! So she did say it, did she?"
"She said that or something very like it. You think that's what she must have meant?" He appealed to her humbly, as to one who had mastered the difficult subject of Frida Tancred.
"Why, whatever else could she have meant, stupid?"
There was an awkward silence, broken, or rather mended, by Miss Chatterton saying, as she stood with her hand on the door:
"Look here, you're not going to back out of it. You've promised to stand by and see us through with it, honor bright."
"I promised nothing of the sort, but I'll stand by all right."