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Updated: June 12, 2025
From the strictly impartial standpoint of a mother she felt sure that the Count admired Agatha. "Yes," answered Mrs. Harrington, with a cynical smile. And Mrs. Ingham-Baker, heedless of the sarcasm, was already engaged in an exhaustive examination of Agatha's dress. She crossed the room and delicately rectified some microscopic disorder of the snake-like hair.
"Perhaps," put in Mrs. Ingham-Baker nervously, "the brains have all gone to the other brother, Henry. It is sometimes so with twins." Mrs. Harrington laughed rather derisively. "Stupid woman to have twins," she muttered. This was apparently one of several grievances against the late Mrs. FitzHenry. "They have a little money of their own, have they not?" inquired Mrs.
Ingham-Baker's motherly instinct would have narrowed itself down to her. But in the absence of her own child, Luke's sorry plight appealed to that larger maternal instinct which makes good women in unlikely places. Mrs. Ingham-Baker was, however, one of the many who learn to curb the impulse of a charitable intention.
Fitz nodded. "I suppose," he added as an afterthought, "that I ought to pay my respects to Mrs. Ingham-Baker?" Luke's face cleared suddenly. Fitz had evidently forgotten about Agatha. "I will ask them to lunch with us in my cabin," he said. And presently they left the bridge. In due course Fitz was presented to the Ingham-Bakers, and Agatha was very gracious. Fitz looked at her a good deal.
"I was just asking Mrs. Harrington about Malta, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Ingham-Baker. "It is a nice place, is it not, Marian?" "I believe it is." "And somehow I quite want to go there. I can't think why," said Mrs. Ingham-Baker volubly. "It would be so nice to get a little sunshine after these grey skies, would it not, dear?" Agatha gave a little shiver as she sat down.
"You have had equal advantages," pursued the dispenser of charity. "I have shown no favour; I have treated you alike. It had been my intention to do so all your lives and after my death." Mrs. Ingham-Baker was so interested at this juncture that she leant forward with parted lips, listening eagerly. The Honourable Mrs.
She had found out that the world cannot pause to help the stricken, or to give a hand to the fallen, but that it always has leisure to cringe and make way for the successful. Other girls had been successful. Why should not she? And if and if The next morning at breakfast Mrs. Ingham-Baker took an opportunity of asking Mrs. Harrington if she knew Malta.
A few straight streaks of cloud became faintly outlined. The moon looked yellow and deathlike. Luke stood watching the rise of a new day, and with it there seemed to be rising within him a new life. Beneath his feet, in her dainty cabin, Agatha Ingham-Baker saw that dawn also. She was standing with her arms folded on the upper berth breast high. She had been standing there an hour.
Ingham-Baker's proud eyes rested complacently on her offspring. "Do you like her dress?" she asked in a whisper only audible to him. But Agatha knew the gist of it. The arm and shoulder nearest to them gave a little jerk of self-consciousness. "Very pretty," replied Fitz; and Mrs. Ingham-Baker stored the remark away for future use.
And now that this quarrel had arisen much sooner than she could have hoped providentially brought about by an astronomical examination-paper, Mrs. Ingham-Baker was forced to face the humiliating fact that she felt sorry for Luke. It would have been different had Agatha been present, but that ingenious maiden was at school at Brighton. Had her daughter been in the room, Mrs.
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