But it was not Roma’s way to dwell on unpleasant suggestions. The meeting troubles half-way was an amusement which had never much recommended itself to her. So she answered brightly—
“Miserable, why should we think about being miserable? But all this time you are forgetting my travelling companion. As you won’t guess who he was, I suppose I must tell you. It was Mr Thurston, your brother-in-law’s brother, Eugenia. The stranger, the new arrival from India, Gertrude, that we met at dinner at the Mountmorrises’.”
“I was just thinking it must be he. He goes up and down that line so much. Did not you like him very much, Miss Eyrecourt? I do exceedingly. And he is so clever and thorough. The only thing not nice about him is, he is a little—funny—I don’t know what to call it.”
“Funny? Do you mean humorous?” said Roma, looking at her with some amusement. “It did not strike me particularly.”
“Oh no,” replied Eugenia. “I don’t mean that at all. I mean he is a little odd—uncertain. Sometimes he is so very much nicer than others. He gets queer fits of stiffness and reserve all of a sudden, and then one can make nothing of him. But oh,” she exclaimed, checking herself suddenly, “I shouldn’t criticise him in this way, for he has been so very good to me.”
“I don’t think you have said anything very treasonable,” said Roma. “I can understand what you mean. He is a sensitive man—almost too much so. He looks as if he had had troubles too, though he is cheerful and practical enough. There is something about him unlike most of the men one meets—they are as a rule so very like each other, or else there is something about me which draws out the same sort of remarks from nearly every young man I meet.”
“Really, Roma, I wish you would not talk such nonsense,” said Gertrude, rising as she spoke. “I do think you should be more careful in what you say. You are getting into a way of thinking you can do or say what you like, which strikes me as the reverse of good taste. I confess I do not like your travelling all the way from Marley with a person of whom you know next to nothing. I hardly even remember meeting this Mr Thurston at the Mountmorrises’, and whether we did or not, that sort of introduction entails no more.”
“But you forget that I said he was a connexion of Eugenia’s, Gertrude,” said Roma, quietly but very distinctly.
Mrs Eyrecourt’s tone softened.
“I did not notice what you said particularly,” she replied, as she left the room. “Of course Eugenia will know I did not intend to be so rude as to speak disparagingly of any of her friends.”