"Dear--Mrs. Fitzpiers," said Felice Charmond, with some inward turmoil
which stopped her speech. "I have not seen you for a long time."
She held out her hand tentatively, while Grace stood like a wild animal
on first confronting a mirror or other puzzling product of
civilization. Was it really Mrs. Charmond speaking to her thus? If it
was, she could no longer form any guess as to what it signified.
"I want to talk with you," said Mrs. Charmond, imploringly, for the
gaze of the young woman had chilled her through. "Can you walk on with
me till we are quite alone?"
Sick with distaste, Grace nevertheless complied, as by clockwork and
they moved evenly side by side into the deeper recesses of the woods.
They went farther, much farther than Mrs. Charmond had meant to go; but
she could not begin her conversation, and in default of it kept walking.
"I have seen your father," she at length resumed. "And--I am much
troubled by what he told me."
"What did he tell you? I have not been admitted to his confidence on
anything he may have said to you."
"Nevertheless, why should I repeat to you what you can easily divine?"
"True--true," returned Grace, mournfully. "Why should you repeat what
we both know to be in our minds already?"
"Mrs. Fitzpiers, your husband--" The moment that the speaker's tongue
touched the dangerous subject a vivid look of self-consciousness
flashed over her, in which her heart revealed, as by a lightning gleam,
what filled it to overflowing. So transitory was the expression that
none but a sensitive woman, and she in Grace's position, would have had
the power to catch its meaning. Upon her the phase was not lost.
"Then you DO love him!" she exclaimed, in a tone of much surprise.
"What do you mean, my young friend?"
"Why," cried Grace, "I thought till now that you had only been cruelly
flirting with my husband, to amuse your idle moments--a rich lady with
a poor professional gentleman whom in her heart she despised not much
less than her who belongs to him. But I guess from your manner that
you love him desperately, and I don't hate you as I did before."
"Yes, indeed," continued Mrs. Fitzpiers, with a trembling tongue,
"since it is not playing in your case at all, but REAL. Oh, I do pity
you, more than I despise you, for you will s-s-suffer most!"