“Why does she persistently lay herself out to attract that man?” was the passionate rejoinder.
“Be silent, Eliza. How can you conjure up so unjust a charge? Lucy is not capable of laying herself out to attract anyone. It lies but in your imagination.”
“Day after day, when she is out with Kate, you may see him join her—allured to her side.”
“The ‘allurer’ is Kate, then. I am surprised at you, Eliza: you might be talking of a servant-maid. Kate has taken a liking for Mr. Grame, and she runs after him at all times and seasons.”
“She ought to be stopped, then.”
“Stopped! Will you undertake to do it? Could her mother be stopped in anything she pleased to do? And the child has the same rebellious will.”
“I say that Robert Grame’s attraction is Lucy.”
“It may be so,” acknowledged Mrs. Carradyne. “But the attraction must lie in Lucy herself; not in anything she does. Some suspicion of the sort has, at times, crossed me.”
She looked at them again as she spoke. They were sauntering onwards slowly; Mr. Grame bending towards Lucy, and talking earnestly. Kate, dancing about, pulling at his arm or his coat, appeared to get but little attention. Mrs. Carradyne quietly went on with her work.
And that composed manner, combined with her last sentence, brought gall and wormwood to Eliza Monk.