'And we shall be better friends than ever now,' continued Audrey, taking her hand, for she felt very tender towards the beautiful woman who was Cyril's mother.
'I trust so,' returned Mrs. Blake in a low voice; but there was a melancholy gleam in her large dark eyes. Then, with an effort to recover her usual manner: 'Audrey, I hope you have forgiven me for troubling you so yesterday. You must not expect me to say I am sorry, or that I repent a word that I said then; but all the same, I was rather hard on you.'
'You certainly made me very wretched.'
'Yes, I felt I was very cruel; but one cannot measure one's words at such a moment. I felt as though my children and I were being driven out of our paradise.'
'And you thought it was my fault?' but Audrey blushed a little as she asked the question.
'Oh, hush!' and Mrs. Blake glanced at her son with pretended alarm; 'do you know that in spite of all I had done for him, that ungrateful boy actually presumed to lecture me. He would have it that I had been cruel to you, and that no one but a woman would have taken such a mean advantage; but all the time he looked so happy that I forgave him. "All's well that ends well." That is what I told him.'
Cyril shook his head. Even in his happiness he had been unable to refrain from uttering his disapproval of his mother's tactics. His nature was almost as simple and transparent as Audrey's. It hurt him to remember how his mother had appealed to this girl's sense of compassion.
'Do not let us talk any more of it,' he said quickly. 'I think Audrey has a great deal to forgive; but you and I, mother, know her generosity.'
And the look that accompanied these words left Audrey silent for a moment.
'Where is Mollie?' she exclaimed presently, when, after a little more conversation, Mrs. Blake insisted that she must have just one cup of tea. In vain Audrey protested that they had had tea already at Woodcote, that in another hour or so they would have to dine. Mrs. Blake could not be induced to let them off.