It occurred to her at last that it might be well to open it, which she did, shaking her head as she did so, and murmuring suggestions as to who the writer might be. The letter open, she began to punctuate her reading of it with little soft "oh's" now and then, and an upraised hand. Mr. Baffall complacently waited until she had turned the page, and had got to the end of the letter; then, as she laid it down and looked round at the two expectant faces, he smiled, and asked who it was had really written it.
"Well—you'll never guess," said Mrs. Baffall. "If anyone had come to me this morning, and had said to me—suddenly and without any warning—'Flora Baffall, you're going to have a letter with the name of Patience Roe at the end of it'—well, I don't know what I should have said to them. Ten to one I should have laughed."
"And what does Patience Roe want?" asked Mr. Baffall. "Not in any difficulty, I hope?"
"Moira didn't come to see me in London," said Alice. "At least—not after that once."
"Well, it's not surprising," said Mrs. Baffall, appealing to the letter, and seeming to shake her head over it. "According to what Patience says here, they never have time for anything—she speaks of Moira as being almost too gay."
Alice started, and looked round quickly with a frown. "What?" she exclaimed. "Gay? Well, she didn't look very gay when I saw her; surely you didn't think so Aunt Baffall? A poor washed-out, shabby thing——"
"Patience says something about investments having turned out better than she expected," murmured Mrs. Baffall. "Which is very pleasing, as Baffall himself would tell you, my dear—knowing something about it. If I didn't know Patience, I should almost think this was like a boasting letter—what we should call a bit of show-off. But it can't be that, of course."
When the meal was ended, and Alice had gone singing off to her own quarters, Baffall came round the table to his wife, and put a friendly hand on her shoulder. "May I see the letter, mother?" he asked.
She handed it to him, and he read it in silence; screwed up one eye over it, and tugged at his short beard, and rumpled his hair. Finally, tapping it with a stunted forefinger, he gave his verdict.
"When anybody writes like that—for no particular reason—it's either one or other of two things. Either they're what we'd call in business 'bluffing'—which means that the letter's got to be read the opposite way, in a manner of speaking—or else they're merely bragging for the sake of bragging."