Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/162

 afterwards have to make a return, they vanish into thin air. I know nothing of Mrs. Sawyer’s affairs; but, if it’s true that she has lost all her money, I should have thought that her friends would have rallied round her and shewn that it made no difference. On a strict calculation of one meal against another, they could keep her from starving for a year or two.”

“And so I have no doubt they will,” I said, though I detest all this modern weighing and balancing.

Where calculation comes in, hospitality goes out.

“She’s absolutely deserted!,” he cried. “I know, because I’m the only man who goes near her.”

“That, Major Blanstock,” I said rather sharply, “is neither fair nor true. Consuelo spent a fortnight with us, she was invited to stay longer.”

“But would you ask her again?,” he sneered; and I could see that he was most offensively hinting that we, like the rest, had dropped her when the bubble was pricked. “My brother has unfortunately resumed possession of Brackenbury,” I told him. And then I really had to pretend that there was somebody at the other end of the room who wanted to speak to me. . . I hope I am tolerably