“Of course when any one comes in in the evening—that’s different. Of course you’ll join us then. But you’d rather be here as a rule, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, you know I love my little room. It was nice of you to have tea here, Molly,” said Elizabeth.
“Yes, I thought you’d like it. And then I wanted the rest of the house to be a surprise to you. When we’ve had tea I want to show you everything. Of course your rooms haven’t been touched, you said you’d rather they weren’t; but everything else has been done up, and I really think it’s very nice. I’ve been quite excited over it.”
“Give me a little more tea, Molly,” said Elizabeth.
As she leaned forward with her cup in her hand, she asked casually: “Have you seen much of David lately?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mary, “he’s here very often.” She pursed her lips a little. “I think David is a very curious person, Liz. I don’t understand him at all. I think he is very difficult to understand.”
“Is he, Molly?”
Elizabeth looked at her sister with something between anxiety and amusement.
“Yes, very. He’s quite changed, it seems to me. I could understand his being upset just after Mr. Mottisfont’s death. We were all upset then. I am sure I never felt so dreadful in my life. It made me quite ill. But afterwards,” Mary’s voice dropped to a lower tone, “afterwards when the letter had come, and everything was cleared up—well, you’d have thought he would have been all right again, wouldn’t you? And instead, he has just gone on getting more and more unlike himself. You know, he was so odd when Edward went to see him that, really,”—Mary hesitated—“Edward thought—well, he wondered whether David had been drinking.”
“Nonsense, Molly!”