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"She's a-going to her banker's I suppose," he said meditatively; "going to make some new investments perhaps. Women are always a-fidgeting and chopping and changing with their money." Mrs. Branston kept the cab waiting half an hour, according to the fairest reckoning.
I think your friend is a good deal changed of late. Haven't you found him so?" "No, Mrs. Branston, I cannot say that I have discovered any marked alteration in him since my return from Australia. John Saltram was always wayward and fitful. He may have been a little more so lately, perhaps, but that is all." "You have a very high opinion of him, I suppose?" "He is very dear to me.
But you have not forgotten me, I hope?" "That is quite impossible, Mrs. Branston. If I had not been very much absorbed in thought just now, I should have recognised you sooner. It was very kind of you to stop to speak to me." "Not at all. I have something most particular to say to you.
Branston felt that the blessings of freedom, the delightful relief of an escape from Pallinsonian influences, were not yet to be hers. Directly she heard from Gilbert that change of air had been ordered for the patient, she was eager to offer her villa near Maidenhead for his accommodation.
Combermere, sheathed in cloth of gold and very jolly; Mrs. Ryle, humble in grey silk; Ellen Stiles in cherry colour; Mrs. Trudon, Mrs. Forrester and Mrs. D'Arcy, their chins nearly touching over eager confidences; Dr. Puddifoot, still breathless from his last dance; Bentinick-Major, tapping with his patent-leather toe the floor, eager to be at it again; Branston the Mayor and Mrs.
Branston before carrying John Saltram out of town; he fancied that her offer of the Maidenhead villa would be better acknowledged personally than by a letter. He found the pretty little widow sorely disappointed by Mr. Saltram's refusal to occupy her house, and it was a little difficult to explain to her why they both preferred other quarters for the convalescent.
Branston was very popular as a hostess, and had a knack of bringing pleasant people round her journalists and musical men, clever young painters who were beginning to make their mark in the art-world, pretty girls who could sing or play well, or talk more or less brilliantly.
"Think badly of you, my dear kind soul! What can I think, except that you are one of the most generous of women?" "And about these other troubles, Mr. Saltram, which have no relation to money matters; you will not give me your confidence?" "There is nothing that I can confide in you, Mrs. Branston. Others are involved in the matter of which I spoke, I am not free to talk about it."
The boats came flashing by at last, and there was the usual excitement amongst the spectators; but it seemed to Gilbert that Mrs. Branston found more interest in John Saltram's conversation than in the race. It is possible she had seen too many such contests to care much for the result of this one.
John Saltram has gone in pursuit of some one very dear to him, some one who has been separated from him by treachery." "A woman?" Adela Branston's fair face flushed crimson as she asked the question. A woman? Yes, no doubt he was in pursuit of that woman whom he loved better than her. "I cannot stop to answer a single question now, my dear Mrs. Branston," Gilbert said gently.
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