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And "Why, Gwen!" the Venice lady answered. They shook hands, the boy and all, and though Sir Lionel didn't pay much attention to what was going on, I couldn't keep up our conversation. "Suppose they tell Mrs. Senter they met me in Venice!" I said to myself. "What shall I do?" Out of one corner of my eye I saw that they did speak of me, and she threw a quick, eager glance in my direction.
Senter, who is a more intellectual woman than you and I supposed when she was playing with us all in India. But one doesn't talk books with pretty women in the East. You remember the day you and I walked to Winchester from Portsmouth, starting early in the morning, with our lunch in our pockets?
Senter went on to say that she and Dick were invited to stay at a house near Southsea, and she thought they would probably accept. Perhaps, if they did, we might meet. But, as I wrote you, I thought it more likely we wouldn't, unless Sir Lionel should seem keen when he heard; and he didn't. He apparently took no interest whatever when his sister repeated the conversation to him next day.
She and Burden, being the young girl and the young man of the party, will, of course, be much together, and Mrs. Senter will fall to my lot for any excursions which may not interest, or be too tiring for, Emily.
Senter was already in the great hall, standing in front of the splendid stone fireplace, watching her rings sparkle in the light of the wood fire, and resting one pretty foot on a paw of the left-hand carved stone wolf that supports a ledge of the mantelpiece just as if it belonged to her and she had tamed it. She glanced up when I appeared, and smiled vaguely, but didn't speak.
Oh, I mustn't forget to say I'm glad I didn't see Rufus's Stone by daylight. Mrs. Senter and Dick went the morning after I wrote to you, but I wouldn't go again, because I didn't want to lose the enchanted picture in my mind. She laughed when I refused. I could have slapped her. But never mind.
"Mightn't it have been at Paris?" obligingly suggested Mrs. Senter, determined I shouldn't be let off, if conviction of any sort were possible. "No, I don't think it was at Paris," murmured Mrs. Tyndal, reflectively, eyeing me in the sunset light, which was turning to pure amethyst. "Now, where could it have been? I seem to associate your face with with Italy." Oh, my goodness!
But she certainly had some thought in connection with him which made her silent and reflective. I hope I have done Ellaline no harm in case the girl really does care for Burden. I never had the intention of keeping her parentage secret, though at the same time it would pain me to have any gossip reach her. However, to do Mrs. Senter justice, I don't think she is a gossip.
A happy man would never tire of it, I think. An unhappy one might prefer Brighton or Monte Carlo. I am neither one nor the other. So I prefer a motor-car. We are on the wing again to-morrow. I must now go to our sitting-room, which looks over the sea, and play a rubber of bridge with Mrs. Senter, Emily, and Burden. Ellaline doesn't play.
There is one other thing which has been bothering me in odd moments, though, and I wish I had asked your advice about that, too, in the letter to be answered at Chester; but the idea hadn't occurred to me then. It suddenly sprang into my mind last night when I was lying in bed, not able to go to sleep. Ought I to repeat to Ellaline what Mrs. Senter told me about the money?
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