"Where is she now?"
"In Buenos Ayres."
"Really? How curious family traits are. The very moment I saw Miss Bowater I was quite certain that she was intended for an adventurous life; and didn't you say that her father was an officer in the merchant service? What is he like?"
"Mr Bowater? He died—out there, only a week or two ago."
"How very, very sad," breathed Susan. "And for Miss Bowater. I never even guessed from her manner that she was in trouble of that kind. And that, I suppose, shows a sort of courage. You were perfectly right; she is lovely and clever. The face a little hard, don't you think, but very clever. She seems to be prepared for what Aunt Alice is going to say long before she says it. And I, you know, sometimes don't notice even the sting till—till the buzzing is over." She paused. "And you were able to make a real friend of her?"
Susan had not the patience to wait until I could sort out an answer to this question. "I don't want to be intrusive," she went on hurriedly, "to—to ask horrid questions; but is it true, you dear thing, that you may some day be leaving us?"
"Leaving you?" I echoed, my thoughts crouching together like chicks under a hen.
The reply came softly and reluctantly in that great cistern of air.
"Why, I understood—to be married."
I leant heavily on my hands, seeing not the plumes and colours of the Sphinxes that swam up at me from the page, but, as if in a mist between them and me, the softly smiling face of Fanny. At last I managed to overcome the slight physical sickness that had swept over me. "Susan"; I said, "if a friend betrayed the very soul out of your body, what would you do? where would you go?"