He
didn't know whether he could bring himself to ask for it, but he
rather thought that Mary would know what he wanted and give it him
without his asking.
That was precisely what Mary knew and did.
She was ready for him, alone in the gray and amber drawing-room, and
she did it almost at once, before Alice or her father could come in.
Alice was out walking, she said, and her father was in the study.
They would be in soon. She thus made Rowcliffe realise that if she was
going to be abrupt it was because she had to be; they had both of them
such a short time.
With admirable tact she assumed Rowcliffe's interest in Ally and the
Vicar. It made it easier to begin about Gwenda. And before she began
it seemed to her that she had better first find out if he knew. So she
asked him point-blank if he had heard from Gwenda?
"No," he said.
At her name he had winced visibly. But there was hope even in his hurt
eyes. It sprang from Mary's taking it for granted that he would be
likely to hear from her sister.
"We only heard--really," said Mary, "the other day."
"Is that so?"
"Of course she wrote; but she didn't say much, because, at first, I'm
afraid, there wasn't very much to say."
"And is there?"
Rowcliffe's hands were trembling slightly. Mary looked down at them
and away.
"Well, yes."
And she told him that Gwenda had got a secretaryship to Lady Frances
Gilbey.
It would have been too gross to have told him about Gwenda's salary.
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