“You are right perhaps to some extent,” she said. “I am glad to please Madeleine in the matter. If you want the best kind of tact, that which springs from real honest kindness of heart and thoughtfulness for others, you will find it in her. Though she does not show it to every one, I must allow. For instance,” with a smile, “she does not care a farthing if she rubs you the wrong way, but she would not hurt by the shadow of a touch any one whom—” but here she hesitated, scarcely liking to allude to her companion’s now thoroughly recognised relatives as in any way objects for pitying consideration—“well, any one whom things have gone hardly with.”
“Madeleine is very good, very good indeed,” he answered cordially; “and so far as I have any right to be so, I am really grateful in the present instance. She has brought a good deal of brightness into those young lives already, and that with no jarring note. Though,” and here in his turn he smiled, “I must own it would be difficult to show kindness to Frances Morion in which there was the slightest touch of condescension: thoroughly gentle and sweet as she is, there is yet a rather remarkable dignity about her for a young person. Don’t you agree with me?”
“To tell you the truth,” said Mrs Littlewood, turning back the lace ruffles which fell so becomingly over her beautiful white hands, “to tell you the truth, I have seen too little of the eldest Miss Morion personally to be able to judge of her, and the characteristic that has struck you in her is not one that appeals to me in a young girl—not, of course, that she is very young, though living so entirely out of the world, of course, detracts from a girl’s savoir-faire. One may have the deficiencies of youth even when youth itself is past.”
Mr Morion listened in silence, and Mrs Littlewood, fearing that for once she had allowed prejudice to overcome her good sense, with a glance at his impassive face, went on again in a different tone.
“I will tell you whom I have taken a great fancy to,” she said; “and that is that charming little Betty! There is no need to see much of her to fall in love with her! She is so perfectly sweet and naïve, candid and transparent as the day.”
Mr Morion smiled rather enigmatically.
“I agree with you there,” he replied; and Mrs Littlewood felt relieved, though she detected a reserve of expression on her hearer’s face, which she was quite at a loss to understand.
He rose as he spoke, and strolled towards the door. The tête-à-tête had taken place in Mrs Littlewood’s boudoir.
“Then I may really feel satisfied,” he said, as he turned the handle, “that my remaining a few days longer is in no way outstaying my welcome?”
“Certainly not,” was the reply; “I mean,” with a smile, “that you could not outstay your welcome with us.”