analogy of something vivid and veiled. She was clear as day, yet melting,
merged, elusive, like the night; and in her glance, in her voice, was that
mingled brightness and shadow. When she had given them their tea she left
her friends, taking her toasted little dog, languid and yawning, under her
arm, and, at a sharp yelp from this petted individual, his paw struck by
the opening of the door, they heard her exclaiming in contrition over him,
"Darling lamb! did his wicked mother hurt him!"

Mrs. Pakenham and Mrs. Wake sipped their tea for some time in silence, and
it was Mrs. Pakenham who voiced at last the thought uppermost for both of
them, "I wonder how Sir Basil will take it."

"Everard's death, you mean, or her going off?"

"Both."

"It's obvious, I think, that if he doesn't follow her at once it will only
be because he thinks that now his chance has come he will make it surer by
waiting."

"It's rather odious of me to think about it at all, I suppose," Mrs.
Pakenham mused, "but one can't help it, having seen it all; having seen
more than either of them have, I'm quite sure, poor, lovely dears."

"No, one certainly can't help it," Mrs. Wake acquiesced. "Though I,
perhaps, should have been too prudish to own to it just now--with poor
Everard hardly in his grave. But that's the comfort of being with a frank,
unscrupulous person like you; one gets it all out and need take no
responsibility."