“If I said them it was because I did not know that they were indecent”—with the prettiest air of hurt artlessness.
Felicity ruminated a minute or two, though, as the upshot showed, not upon the scabreux nature of her young friend’s conversation. It was clear that her inquisitiveness as to her relations’ ménage had got the better of her sense of decorum.
“They are a strange couple, are not they?”
The confidential character of words and intonation betrayed poor Miss Ransome into a new slip.
“I suppose,” she said, with a curiosity not at all inferior to that of which she herself was the object, “that their marriage has never been anything but a nominal one.”
CHAPTER XXX
Felicity was as good as her word; nor was there any delay in setting the restored acolyte to her destined labours.
“I am afraid you will not find it very gay,” Lady Bletchley had said, “but what with this mourning”—glancing at the very diluted ink of her attire—“and the terrible corvée of getting into the new house, I really cannot be bothered with society just now. However”—with a consolatory shrug—“it cannot well be duller than Stillington, where I suppose you literally never set eyes upon any one except the Aylmers.”
The entire innocence of purpose evident in this mention of the family alluded to proved to a relieved Miss Ransome that her late hosts had kept the secret of her misdemeanors faithfully.
“By-the-by, I hear they have left the Dower House,” continued the other, carelessly. “What can poor Edward do with his Sunday afternoons!”