concealed less because she liked him much more, and he kindly
interpreted her feelings of anxiety and discomfort to be those of guilt
in a girl too young to be happy in criminal deceit. With his experience
of life, and with his usually just perceptions, he ought to have known
better; but there is some quality in a few men or women, intangible and
yet unmistakable, which makes us instinctively suspect present, or
foretell future, moral evil; and poor Molly was one of these. What it
was, on the other hand, which made her trust Sir Edmund and drew her to
him, it would need a subtle analysis of natural affinities to decide. No
doubt it was greatly because he sought her that Molly liked him, but it
was not only on that account. Nor was this only because Edmund was
worldly wise, successful, and very gentle. There was a quality in the
attraction that drew Molly to Edmund that cannot be put into words. It
is the quality without which there has never been real tragedy in the
relations of a woman to a man. In the first weeks in London this
attraction hardly reached beyond the merest liking, and was a pleasant,
sunny thing of innocent appearance.

Mrs. Delaport Green was, for a short time, of opinion that the problem
of whether to prolong Molly's visit or not would be settled for her by a
quite new development. Then she doubted, and watched, and was puzzled.

Why, she thought, should such a great person as Sir Edmund Grosse, who
was certainly in no need of fortune-hunting, be so attentive to Molly
if he did not really like her? At times she had a notion that he did not
like her at all, but at other times surely he liked her more than he
knew himself. He said that she was graceful, clever, and interesting;
and the acute little onlooker had not the shadow of a doubt that he held
these opinions, but why did she at moments think that he disliked Molly?
Certainly the dislike, if dislike it were, did not prevent him from very