Betty considered.
"You can't do half as much for me now as you once could, now that Frank's going to leave Parliament," she remarked, with as much worldly wisdom as her face allowed. "Nevertheless, the quality of my nature is such that, sometimes, I might even be nice to you for nothing. But information before benevolence—why have you got her here?"
"Because she was fagged and unhappy in London, and her husband had gone to take his mother abroad, after first doing Maxwell a great kindness," said Marcella,—not, however, without embarrassment, as Betty saw,—"and I want you to be kind to her."
"Reasons one and two no reasons at all," said Betty, meditating; "and the third wants examining. You mean that George Tressady went after Ancoats?"
Marcella raised her shoulders, and was silent.
"If you are going to be stuffy and mysterious," said Betty, with vivacity, "you know what sort of a hedgehog I can be. How can you expect me to be nice to Letty Tressady unless you make it worth my while?"
"Betty, you infant! Well, then, he did go after Ancoats—got him safely away from Trouville, brought him to Paris to join Mrs. Allison, and, in general, has laid us all under very great obligations. Meanwhile, she was very much tired out with nursing her mother-in-law—"
"Oh, and such a mother-in-law—such a jewel!" ejaculated Betty.
"And I brought her down here to rest, till he should come back from
Wildheim and take her home. He will probably be here to-night."
The speaker reddened unconsciously during her story, a fact not lost on Betty.