“I wished to speak to you,” she answered, “about something that happened while you were paying a visit in the neighborhood of Perth.”
The dawning surprise in Mrs. Glenarm’s face became intensified into an expression of distrust. Her hearty manner vanished under a veil of conventional civility, drawn over it suddenly. She looked at Anne. “Never at the best of times a beauty,” she thought. “Wretchedly out of health now. Dressed like a servant, and looking like a lady. What does it mean?”
The last doubt was not to be borne in silence by a person of Mrs. Glenarm’s temperament. She addressed herself to the solution of it with the most unblushing directness—dextrously excused by the most winning frankness of manner.
“Pardon me,” she said. “My memory for faces is a bad one; and I don’t think you heard me just now, when I asked for your name. Have we ever met before?”
“Never.”
“And yet—if I understand what you are referring to—you wish to speak to me about something which is only interesting to myself and my most intimate friends.”
“You understand me quite correctly,” said Anne. “I wish to speak to you about some anonymous letters—”
“For the third time, will you permit me to ask for your name?”
“You shall hear it directly—if you will first allow me to finish what I wanted to say. I wish—if I can—to persuade you that I come here as a friend, before I mention my name. You will, I am sure, not be very sorry to hear that you need dread no further annoyance—”
“Pardon me once more,” said Mrs. Glenarm, interposing for the second time. “I am at a loss to know to what I am to attribute this kind interest in my affairs on the part of a total stranger.”