“For drawing-room use, certainly. In your case with admirable result. Now, for heaven’s sake, give me some tea and tell me things.”
Cecily complied with both requests, though to the latter she did not respond as thoroughly as her cousin wished. Except for an occasional half-hour now and then, they had not met for a year, and Rose was amazed at the change in Cecily. She struck her as looking prettier than she had been even in her early girlhood, but so different from that girlish Cecily that it was difficult to think of the two individuals as in any way related. Cecily was one of those women who develop late, in intellect, in all that makes personality, even, under favorable circumstances, in beauty. At twenty-five she had been still immature. Now, at thirty-two, she gave the impression of a woman self-possessed, if gracious and charming in manner; a woman who had looked close at life, and was under no illusions with regard to it.
As Rose listened to her, she gained the impression of a full and varied existence, full of interest, at least, if not of happiness. Of Mayne, Cecily spoke quite frankly. She saw much of him. She owed him much—“almost everything, in fact.” Of her husband, though Rose waited, she spoke not at all, beyond a mention of the fact that he had gone into the country for a week or two.
“I didn’t ask any one to dinner,” Cecily said. “I thought we’d be alone the first evening—and not go out anywhere.”
“It’s a change for you to be quiet, I see,” remarked Rose.
Cecily laughed. “Yes,” she admitted. “There’s always some one here—or else I’m out.”
“A great change from Sheepcote?”
“Thank God! yes—in every way.”
The immediate reply was fervent, and Rose wondered, though at the time she said nothing. It was only after dinner, when they sat by the open window in the drawing-room, that she deliberately introduced the subject of her speculations.
“Do you remember the last time we sat by the window and talked?” she said.