CHAPTER XI.

_MR. OGILVIE'S OLD FRIEND._

PAULINE'S question was left unanswered for the moment, and she decided not to push it that day. Better to wait and see what was expected of her.

Seemingly she was expected to be agreeable, and to have an unfailing fund of conversation at command. Miss Primrose talked all dinner-time, and nearly all the evening, never oppressively, always charmingly. Pauline was not gifted in the conversational line, but she felt that the best part of her was being drawn out by this sparkling creature. It was impossible not to be at ease, impossible not to converse.

If she were indeed Mr. Rudge's Miss Primrose—but that was the question. Pauline tried to find out, and failed. Three times she led the talk to Mr. Rudge; and three times Miss Primrose led it away before her end was attained. What could Pauline do but submit?

Certain particulars slipped out in the course of conversation. It became evident that Miss Primrose was an orphan, and had lived, at least for some little time, with her aunt. Conditions not unlike those of Mr. Fudge, Pauline remembered. It was also apparent that either she or her aunt was extremely well off, that they spent part of the year in this town house, and a larger part in their country house.

"We ought to be there now," Miss Primrose said, "but auntie's illness has made the journey impossible just yet."

Though Miss Primrose revealed little to Pauline, Pauline revealed much to Miss Primrose. She had not often so sympathetic a listener. She told about her own home occupations, about her father's losses, about Nessie's return from school, and about the need to find "something to do" for herself, as a means of keeping the other two afloat.

"And now you have found it," said Miss Primrose.

"I don't see what I have to do yet."

Miss Primrose left the room and returned with a confused tangle of grey knitting. "I wonder if you could possibly manage to put this right," she said. "It is past my powers. For the 'old lady,' you know."

"I don't think you will forget my talking aloud," said Pauline, half vexed.

"Do you mind? Then I will not speak of it again!"

And Pauline was ashamed of her own vexation. "Could I not help you with your aunt?" she asked. "I mean—help to amuse her, or read aloud?"

"She has not seen anyone yet since her attack, and a stranger's face too soon might flurry her, but she talks of a visit from you soon."

Pauline was fain to accept the state of things, and to go on, not understanding. Despite some confusion of ideas, she passed a pleasant evening. And it would have been more than pleasant, really delightful, but for a haunting dread about "Mr. Rudge's Miss Primrose." For if this were she, then indeed Pauline's hopes sank far below zero. How could any man be expected to turn from such a Miss Primrose to look at her ordinary little self.

She lay long awake at night, and came down in the morning resolved to find out more. But the resolve was baffled, Pauline could not tell how. And when another night came, she was still perplexed.

A week passed thus, agreeably enough, but mysteriously. Pauline had determined to submit, and to await Miss Primrose's pleasure. Meantime she was very comfortable, treated not as a "humble companion," but as an honoured guest, taken hither and thither to London sights, pictures, music, and aught else that she liked. Pauline wondered at herself sometimes for not being more "spoilt" by all this ease and enjoyment, but she took the whole soberly. Her heart was at Singleton, and the craving to return was sometimes unendurable.

"I don't know what to say to my father," she broke out at length one day, a full week after she had come.

The morning had been spent in work and reading; the afternoon in a gallery of pictures and Park crowds. Now she was endeavouring, before dinner, to answer home letters, and she found herself in difficulties.

"Can I help you?" asked Miss Primrose.

"I suppose you could, but I don't mean to bother you with questions, if it is too soon."

"Ask any questions you like. You really have been a model of patience."

"It is about Miss Primrose—not you, but my father's friend. He and Nessie say I tell them nothing, and they want to know more about her. Am I to say that I have not even seen her, and don't know whether she exists—that it is all a mistake, in fact?"

"I don't think you need be quite so sweeping. What do you mean by—'it all'?"

"I mean that you, of course, are not the Miss Primrose he knew twenty-seven years ago."

"I'm afraid—hardly—since I'm only twenty-five years old."

"You don't look so much."

"No? But my name really is Viola Primrose."

"Some relation, of course. The question is, What has become of my father's Miss Primrose? I believe you know."

"And if I do?"

"Hasn't the time come for me to understand?"

"Perhaps it has. The other Miss Primrose is upstairs—my old aunt. So you are right about the relationship."

"But you said her name—"

"Is Mrs. Palmer. She married Captain Palmer two years ago, and lost her husband in three months. It was just a little interlude in a life of old-maidhood."

"And my father never heard it?"

"I suppose not. I don't know why he should. There has not been much intercourse; and one may so easily pass over the newspaper notice."

"Did Miss Primrose—I mean Mrs. Palmer—ever talk to you of having known my father?"