"Nonsense! I wish you wouldn't talk so, Cynthia!"
"And I wish you wouldn't always take me 'at the foot of the letter,'
as an English girl at school used to translate it. Oh, how hot it
is! Is it never going to get cool again? My child! what dirty hands
you've got, and face too; and I've been kissing you--I daresay I'm
dirty with it, too. Now, isn't that like one of mamma's speeches?
But, for all that, you look more like a delving Adam than a spinning
Eve." This had the effect that Cynthia intended; the daintily clean
Molly became conscious of her soiled condition, which she had
forgotten while she had been attending to Cynthia, and she hastily
withdrew to her own room. When she had gone, Cynthia noiselessly
locked the door; and, taking her purse out of her desk, she began to
count over her money. She counted it once--she counted it twice, as
if desirous of finding out some mistake which should prove it to be
more than it was; but the end of it all was a sigh.
"What a fool!--what a fool I was!" said she, at length. "But even if
I don't go out as a governess, I shall make it up in time."
Some weeks after the time he had anticipated when he had spoken of
his departure to the Gibsons, Roger returned back to the Hall. One
morning when he called, Osborne told them that his brother had been
at home for two or three days.
"And why has he not come here, then?" said Mrs. Gibson. "It is not
kind of him not to come and see us as soon as he can. Tell him I say
so--pray do."
Osborne had gained one or two ideas as to her treatment of Roger the
last time he had called. Roger had not complained of it, or even
mentioned it, till that very morning; when Osborne was on the point
of starting, and had urged Roger to accompany him, the latter had
told him something of what Mrs. Gibson had said. He spoke rather as
if he was more amused than annoyed; but Osborne could read that he
was chagrined at those restrictions placed upon calls which were the
greatest pleasure of his life. Neither of them let out the suspicion
which had entered both their minds--the well-grounded suspicion
arising from the fact that Osborne's visits, be they paid early or
late, had never yet been met with a repulse.
Osborne now reproached himself with having done Mrs. Gibson
injustice. She was evidently a weak, but probably a disinterested,
woman; and it was only a little bit of ill-temper on her part which
had caused her to speak to Roger as she had done.