‘I imagine he’s a lover,’ she said.
Miss Hinton smiled a smile of experience in that line.
Few women, if taxed with having an admirer, are so free from vanity as to deny the impeachment, even if it is utterly untrue. When it does happen to be true, they look pityingly away from the person who is so benighted as to have got no further than suspecting it.
‘There now—Miss Hinton; you are engaged to be married!’ said Cytherea accusingly.
Adelaide nodded her head practically. ‘Well, yes, I am,’ she said.
The word ‘engaged’ had no sooner passed Cytherea’s lips than the sound of it—the mere sound of her own lips—carried her mind to the time and circumstances under which Miss Aldclyffe had used it towards herself. A sickening thought followed—based but on a mere surmise; yet its presence took every other idea away from Cytherea’s mind. Miss Hinton had used Edward’s words about towns; she mentioned Mr. Springrove as attending to her garden. It could not be that Edward was the man! that Miss Aldclyffe had planned to reveal her rival thus!
‘Are you going to be married soon?’ she inquired, with a steadiness the result of a sort of fascination, but apparently of indifference.
‘Not very soon—still, soon.’
‘Ah-ha! In less than three months?’ said Cytherea.
‘Two.’