The words and tone were matter-of-fact and commonplace enough. Not so the inward surmises which his words, still more his manner, suggested.
For the first time Frances allowed her thoughts to entertain a possibility which till this evening she had resolutely refrained from even considering.
Could it be that her fanciful little sisters had any ground for the castle they were busily constructing, of which the foundation hitherto she would have refused to believe more stable than “in the air?”
Chapter Fifteen.
Breaking Ground.
Mrs Littlewood glanced up quickly as Betty and Ryder Morion entered the room. She was seated not far from the door, showing some photographs of her grandchildren to Mrs Charlemont. A curious expression, half annoyance, half expectancy, stole into her face as she caught sight of the two, and between handing the portraits to her friend and listening: to her comments thereupon, she managed to keep a keen though unobtruded watch on the doorway.
She had not long to wait. Scarcely a minute had elapsed before her son and Frances made their appearance. Mrs Littlewood’s perceptions and instincts were very quick: something told her that the two had been talking more or less confidentially, for Horace looked eager and slightly nervous; his companion, on the other hand, grave and almost absent, with a dreamy look in her eyes, which her hostess—little as, comparatively speaking, she knew her—felt intuitively was not Frances’ habitual expression.
“It cannot surely have come to anything serious as yet,” with a sudden rush of alarm which almost startled herself. “He would never dream of it without consulting me, dependent on me as he is, and surely I have more hold on his affection and respect than that would show!”