“By-the-bye,” he said, “don’t mind my asking, have the Marths been civil to you? You were such near neighbours. Josephine is a peculiar woman, but there’s good in her.”
“There is in nearly every one, it seems to me,” answered Mrs Derwent with a smile. “Lady Marth had no special reasons for noticing us.”
“That means she was—ah well, the very reverse of what she might have been,” he said, with a touch of severity. “However—”
“But Lady Hebe was all she could possibly be,” said Blanche quickly. “We felt drawn to her from the very first.”
“That’s right,” said Sir Adam, and with the words he was gone.
They were but a small party at East Moddersham at dinner that day. A few of Sir Adam’s particular friends, got together to welcome him back again, even if but for a short time, among them.
He drove over with Lady Harriot and her husband, to whom had not been confided the whole gravity of poor Hebe’s troubles. And the old lady chattered away rather aggravatingly as to reports which had reached her of Norman Milward’s fiancée having grown hypochondriacal and fanciful.
“The poor fellow’s been in Norway for ever so long,” she said, “because she wouldn’t agree to fixing the time for their marriage. Aunt Grace was with her about then, but even she couldn’t make her hear reason. It’s not what I’d have expected of Hebe, I must say.”
“Did Aunt Grace tell you so herself?” inquired Sir Adam drily.
“Well, no, not exactly,” Lady Harriot allowed. “It was something I heard in London about Hebe’s being so changed, and poor Norman looking so ill. It must have been true, for our Archie has been away with him all this time. I do hope he’ll be back soon, for he’s so useful in the autumn.”