Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/132

118 "Absorbing?" he repeated. "Isn't it, preposterously? Wait till you've watched Effie!"

His visitor preserved for a while a silence which might have indicated that, with this injunction, her waiting had begun; but at last she said with the same simplicity: "I've a sort of original reason for my interest in her."

"Do you mean the illness of her poor mother?" He saw that she meant nothing so patronising, though her countenance fell with the reminder of this misfortune: she heard with awe that the unconscious child was menaced. "That's a very good reason," he declared, to relieve her. "But so much the better if you've got another too. I hope you'll never want for one to be kind to her."

She looked more assured. "I'm just the person always to be."

"Just the person?" Tony felt that he must draw her out. She was now arrested, however, by the arrival of the footman, to whom he immediately turned. "Please ask Gorham to be as good as to bring down the child."

"Perhaps Gorham will think it won't do," Jean suggested as the servant went off.