Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/174

 "She had no reason to know it," said the girl. "She is not my friend—as you are her husband's friend."

"Ah, no, I don't suppose that. But she might have heard from you."

"She doesn't hear from us. My mother used to write to her for a while after she left Europe, but she has given it up." She paused a moment, and then she added—"Blanche is too silly!"

Bernard noted this, wondering how it bore upon his theory of a spiteful element in his companion. Of course Blanche was silly; but, equally of course, this young lady's perception of it was quickened by Blanche's having married a rich man whom she herself might have married.

"Gordon doesn't think so," Bernard said.

Angela looked at him a moment.

"I am very glad to hear it," she rejoined gently.

"Yes, it is very fortunate."

"Is he well?" asked Miss Vivian. "Is he happy?"

"He has all the air of it."

"I am very glad to hear it," she repeated. And then she moved the latch of the gate and passed in. At the same moment her mother appeared in the open doorway. Mrs. Vivian had apparently been summoned by the sound of her daughter's colloquy with an unrecognised voice, and when she saw Bernard she gave a sharp little cry of surprise. Then she stood gazing at him.

Since the breaking up of the little party at Baden—Baden he had not devoted much meditation to this quiet lady and superior woman, who had been so tenderly anxious to establish her daughter properly in life; but there had been in his mind a tacit assumption that if Angela deemed that he had played her a trick, Mrs. Vivian's view of his conduct was not more charitable. He felt that he must have 166