"I'm not hungry, Mother. Billy said——"
"Billy?" Lady Frances made the interruption in a tone of pleasant interrogation.
"Will," Daisy substituted, with a little blush (Lady Frances, of course, could not know that she was a real wife now), "said that he thought you would rather lunch at home, so I had a little something just before I left."
"Billy—Billy," Lady Frances, in mental enquiry, repeated the nickname, which had at first grated her a bit. Then her heart gave a great leap. She turned and looked closely at Daisy. One glance at the softened eyes, the delicate-hued and somewhat pale cheeks, the dreamy lips, the relaxed and restful lines of neck and bosom—and the old gentlewoman and mother, warmth of joy flooding all her arteries, reached out her hand, covered Daisy's with it, and held the young girl's fingers in a close and long caress.
"My darling, my darling!" she murmured, with a thrilling tenderness, "oh, we will have to take such care of you. Does William know?"
Daisy answered with her frank and matter-of-fact affirmative nod.
The drive home was a very quiet one. Daisy's new habit of forward-looking occupied her. Lady Frances Ware was wrapped in an ecstasy of that kind and depth which one does not want to break or to have broken by the paltry sound of the spoken word.