But the conversation ran, as it is wont to run at such times, when hearts long absent have found each other again, and fling trifles about, knowing that their stores of treasure must wait for a quieter time to be unpacked. They talked of weather and crops and Pitt's voyage, and the neighbours, and the changes in the village, and the improvements about the place; not as if any of these things were much cared for; they were bubbles floating on their cups of joy. Questions asked and questions answered, as if in the pleasure of speaking to one another again the subject of their words did not matter; or as if the supreme content of the moment could spare a little benevolence even for these outside things. At last a question was asked which made Betty prick up her ears; this must have been due to something indefinable in the tone of the speakers, for the words were nothing.
'Have you heard anything of the Gainsboroughs?'
'No.'
It was the elder Dallas who answered.
'What has become of them?'
'I am not in condition to tell.'
'Have you written to them?'
'No, not since the last time; and that was a good while ago.'
'Then you do not know how things are with them, of course. I do not see how you have let them drop out of knowledge so. They were not exactly people to lose sight of.'
'Why not, when they went out of sight?'