"Why, I owe you pounds and pounds," cried Fanny gaily, pushing back her handkerchief into her bodice. "Here we are—not quite in the same box, perhaps; still strangers and pilgrims. Of course we must help one another.... Just think of this house! The servants! The folly of it, and all for Madame Monnerie—though I wouldn't mind being in her shoes, even for one season. Socialism, my dear, is all a question of shoes. And this is Poppetkin's little boudoir? A pygmy palace, my dear, and if only the lightning would last a little longer I might get a real glimpse of that elfin little exquisite over there in her beautiful blue brocade. But then; it will be roses all the way with you, Miss M. You are independent, and valued for yourself alone."
"How different people are, Fanny. You always think first of the use of a thing, and I, stupidly, just of it—itself."
"Do we?" she said indifferently, and rose from her chair. "Anyhow I'm here to be of use. And who," she remarked, with a little yawn, as she came to a pause again beside the streaming window. "Who was that prim, colourless girl with the pale blue eyes? Engaged to be married."
"But Fanny, she had her gloves on that morning, I remember it as clearly as—as I always remember everything where you are: how could you possibly tell that Susan Monnerie was engaged?"
It was quite a simple problem, Fanny tranquilly assured me: "The ring bulged under the suède."
Her scornfulness piqued me a little. "Anyhow," I retorted, "Susan's eyes are not pale blue. They are almost cornflower—chicory colour; like the root of a candle-flame."
"Please, Midgetina," Fanny begged me, "don't let me canker your new adoration. Perhaps you preened your pretty feathers in them when they were fixed on the demigod. 'Susan'! I thought all the Susans perished in the 'sixties, or had fled down the area. And who is he?" But she did not follow up her question. All things come to him who waits, she had rambled on inconsequently, if he waits long enough; and no doubt God would temper the wind to the shorn orphan even if she did look a perfect frump in mourning.
"You know you could never look a frump," I replied indignantly, "even if you hadn't a rag on."
Fanny shrugged her dainty shoulders. "Alas!" she said.
But her "orphan" had brought me back with a guilty shock to what, no doubt, was an extremely fantastic panorama of Buenos Ayres; and that swiftly back again to Mr Crimble. For an instant or two I looked away. Perhaps it was my caution that betrayed me.