Rhoda glanced down at the letter. “I know you will be glad to have these testimonials, which are as sincere as they are spontaneous, to the unique position Church held in the regard of many distinguished people,” she read deliberately, aloud.
“Do you think that is the right kind of thing to say? It strikes me as rather formal. But one is so terribly afraid of hurting her by some stupidity.”
“Oh, I don’t think so at all, Philip. I mean—it is quite the proper thing, I think. After all, it’s—it’s more than a year ago, you know.”
“The wives of men like Church remember them longer than that, I fancy. But if you will be pleased to sit down, Mrs. Doyle, I’ll finish it in some sort of decency and get it off.”
Rhoda sat down and crossed her feet and looked into dusty vacancy. The recollection of Ancram’s expression as he passed her in the road came back to her, and as she reflected that the ship which carried him to Judith Church would also take her the balm respectfully prepared by the Committee, her sense of humour curved her lips in an ironical smile. The grotesqueness of the thing made it seem less serious, and she found quite five minutes’ interested occupation in considering it. Then she regarded the baboo making pens, and picked up a “Digest” and put it down again, and turned over the leaves of a tome on the “Hindu Law of Inheritance,” and yawned, and looked out of the window, and observed that it had stopped raining.
“Philip, aren’t you nearly done? Remember me affectionately to Mrs. Church—no, perhaps you’d better not, either.”
Doyle was knitting his brows over a final sentiment, and did not reply.
“Philip, is that one of your old coats hanging on the nail? Is it old enough to give away? I want an old coat for the syce to sleep in: he had fever yesterday.”
Mrs. Doyle went over to the object of her inquiries, took it down, and daintily shook it.
“Philip! Pay some attention to me. May I have this coat? There’s nothing in the pockets—nothing but an old letter and a newspaper. Oh!”