The repetition of the polite assertion was merely because that ferocious shyness of hers did not suggest to Mrs. Tancred any more original observation; but the tone in which it was conveyed made Miss Ransome say to herself that “the old woman was even more terrible than she had expected.” No sign of this reflection appeared, however, on the dial-plate of her innocent face.
“I mean that I do not mind its being cold. I like to take it just as it comes.”
“Is that the way in which you like to take things generally?” asked the other, unstiffening into an involuntary smile.
It was difficult to look at anything so small, so dewy, so palpably made of rose-leaves as Bonnybell’s face without smiling; and in addition to this impulse shared by the generality of her species, Mrs. Tancred had for her own portion that extravagant admiration of beauty which, unmixed with any tincture of spite, is the doubtful appanage of the frankly ugly and really good among women.
“I think one has to, more or less, don’t you think?” replied the rose-leaf with a pretty diffidence, as one not competent to hold an opinion with any tenacity in the presence of a person so far superior in wisdom to herself.
With a passing shudder at the slipshodness of the grammar displayed in the answer, coupled with a slight sense of approbation of the deference of its tone, and an inward reflection—somewhat the reverse of that lately made by its object—that the new arrival was not quite so impossible as she had expected, Mrs. Tancred thawed a little further, and put an almost friendly question as to the welfare of the couple whom her visitor had just left.
“Mrs. Glanville has a slight cold,” replied the other, with the glad glibness of feeling herself on safe ground, “but taking care of it, and I do not think it will be much. She caught it as we were coming out of the ‘Happy Evening’ last Thursday.”
For a moment Mrs. Tancred hesitated. Should she seize this early opportunity for beginning the projected education of her charge, and point out to her that it is grammatically impossible to come out of a “Happy Evening,” or should she let the slip pass? Her rejoinder showed that she had chosen the weaker-minded alternative.
“Felicity tells me that you have been invaluable to her at the Recreation Hall.”
“I was so glad to be able to do any little thing to show my gratitude to her.”