“How do you know that, Mrs. Roper?” he asked. His voice sounded perfectly natural, and Margaret was reassured at the tone of it. She could not see Ralph well; it was getting dark now.
“I know it well,” she said. “Of course we talk of you when you are gone.”
“And does Mrs. Beatrice talk of me?”
“Not so much,” said Margaret, “but she listens very closely; and asks us questions sometimes.” The girl’s heart was beating with excitement as she spoke; but she had made up her mind to seek this opportunity. It seemed a pity, she thought, that two friends of hers should so misunderstood one another.
“And what kind of questions?” asked Ralph again.
“She wonders—what you really think—” went on Margaret slowly, bending down over her embroidery, and punctuating her words with stitches—“about—about affairs—and—and she said one day that—”
“Well?” said Ralph in the same tone.
“That she thought you were not so severe as you seemed,” ended Margaret, her voice a little tremulous with amusement.
Ralph sat perfectly still, staring at the great fire-plate on which a smoky Phoebus in relief drove the chariot of the sun behind the tall wavering flames that rose from the burning logs. He knew very well why Margaret had spoken, and that she would not speak without reason; but the fact revealed was so bewilderingly new to him that he could not take it in. Margaret looked at him once or twice a little uneasily; and at last sighed.
“It is too dark,” she said, “I must fetch candles.”