"So much the better. By that time the funeral and other matters will be over and done with."
Drelincourt sat for a few moments without speaking, toying with his watch-guard. Mrs. Jenwyn knew better than to break the silence.
At this time, judging from appearances, she was somewhere about forty years of age. Her features were regular and refined, and she would still have been accounted a very handsome woman but for the abnormal pallor of her complexion, her sunken cheeks, and a certain worn and tired look about her keenly watchful eyes, with their slightly contracted lids, which might be the result of insomnia.
Like her hair, her eyes were of a brown so dark as in some lights to be hardly distinguishable from black. Although her face was essentially feminine in certain of its aspects, its dominant expression was one of innate resolution, and of an amount of will power rather unusual in one of her sex. "A woman of great force of character, who would do and dare much to gain her ends, whatever they might be," was Mr. Drelincourt's pithy summing up of her.
For all that, there must have been a sunny corner hidden somewhere under the husk of her almost frozen reserve, or Anna Drelincourt--so susceptible to chills of every kind--would not have learned to love her and cling to her as she did. Scarcely less dear had Anna's mother held her.
Beyond the fact that she was a widow, Drelincourt knew nothing of her history or antecedents, and did not seek to know anything. He had accepted her, so to speak, as a legacy from his father, and had soon learned to like and respect her for herself.
There was something about her self-contained character, with its reserve of quiet force, which appealed specially to him. She was the very woman--one out of a thousand--he told himself, for the peculiar post she occupied, and he was careful to treat her with every consideration.
Some little time passed before Mr. Drelincourt spoke again. To Mrs. Jenwyn he seemed to be debating some point with himself. At length he said:
"Contrary to what I had ventured to hope before they came together, my wife always seemed to be very fond of Anna, and to make much of her. That, at least, is how matters presented themselves to me. What is your opinion, Mrs. Jenwyn? You were in a position to observe things from a far more intimate point of view than I was."
His eyes were fixed on the matron; she could not choose but answer him. Her dark, prominent brows came together for a moment; a little wave of color tinged her pale cheeks for a second or two.