Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/52

38 "You've been free to return and wait for Lord John?"—that was the sense in which the elder woman appeared to prefer to understand it as speaking.

The tone of it, none the less, led her companion immediately, though very quietly, to correct her. "I've not come back to wait for Lord John."

"Then he hasn't told you—if you've talked—with what idea he has come?"

Lady Grace had for a further correction the same shade of detachment. "Kitty has told me—what it suits her to pretend to suppose."

"And Kitty's pretensions and suppositions always go with what happens—at the moment, among all her wonderful happenings—to suit her?"

Lady Grace let that question answer itself—she took the case up further on. "What I can't make out is why this should so suit her!"

"And what I can't!" said Lady Sandgate without gross honesty and turning away after having watched the girl a moment. She nevertheless presently faced her again to follow this speculation up. "Do you like him enough to risk the chance of Kitty's being for once right?"