“Oh no,” she replied, “none whatever. I was not only thinking of cold and such things. I—of course, I am always anxious about her. And this visit here—a sort of ‘coming out’ it really was—and among comparative strangers—”
“Still, after all, it has turned out all right,” he repeated, still with that vague instinct of annoyance. “At least,” he went on, as his own misgivings and anxiety concerning Imogen’s friendship with Beatrix occurred to his mind—“at least, I hope so. I—I have done what I could,” but here he hesitated. It scarcely came within the lines of loyalty to his hosts to discuss them with an outsider, and an outsider concerning whose discretion his doubts were grave.
“I am sure of that. Oh yes, indeed,” said Mrs Wentworth, with a recurrence of gush in her tone. “As Miss Forsyth was saying only yesterday, Imogen is really a most—”
“Excuse me,” said Rex, much more stiffly than he had yet spoken, “one thing I must ask of you, Mrs Wentworth, and that is not to repeat to me any of Miss Forsyth’s remarks on any subject whatsoever. As regards Miss Wentworth, so far as you are good enough to allow me to advise, I was going to say I wish she had made, I wish still she could make, more of a friend of Florence. Believe me, I am not influenced by prejudice or anything of that sort in saying so. For the future, too—”
Unconsciously to himself the stiffness had melted away again as he spoke. Mrs Wentworth’s perceptions were not of the quickest; still she could not but hear the contempt in his voice when he spoke of Mabella. Against this, however, she was, so to say, forearmed by Miss Forsyth’s own plausible regrets that Major Winchester, a man for whom she had the profoundest respect, should dislike her so.
“It may have been partly my own fault,” she had said, with a sigh. “I know I have been wild and foolish; but some one has made mischief too, I feel sure.”
So Mab’s new friend did not resent his rather imperious request as she might otherwise have done, and the vague, uncompleted sentence at the end of his speech—“for the future,”—aroused in her all sorts of pleasant surmises.
“You are so kind, so very kind, dear Major Winchester, to take so much interest in my Imogen,” she murmured. “Yes, I wish she knew more of Florence, as I see you think highly of her. Of course she is a good deal older—”
“Florence cannot be older than that other girl,” said Rex, rather gruffly. “And her age does not seem to be any objection to her as a friend.”
“Imogen is not a particular friend of Mabella’s,” said Mrs Wentworth, quietly. “In fact she—I think she has rather taken a dislike to the poor girl. I like her, I confess, very much. I am sorry for her; she seems to me much misunderstood; and of course, if a little friendly, elder-sisterly sympathy can do her any good, or be any help to her—”