Maria Angelina's involuntary glance at Mrs. Blair caught the superior assurance of her smile.
"My dear Jim! He was simply mad about her. That last leave, before he went to France, he only went places to meet her."
"Well, he may have got over it. Men do," argued Cousin Jim stubbornly.
"Yes," echoed Maria Angelina's beating heart in hope, "men do!"
Cousin Jane laughed. "Men don't get over Leila Grey--not if Leila Grey wants to keep them."
"If she wanted so darn much to keep him why didn't she take him then?"
"I didn't say she wanted to keep him _then_." Mrs. Blair's tones were mysteriously, ironically significant. "Leila wasn't throwing herself away on any young officer--with nothing but his insurance. It was Bobby Martin that _she_ was after----"
"Gad! Was she?" Cousin Jim was patently struck by this. "Why, Bobby's just a kid and she----"
"There's not two years' difference between them--in _years_. But Leila came out very young--and she's the most thoroughly calculating----"
"Oh, come now, Jane--just because the girl didn't succumb to the impecunious Barry and did like the endowed Bobby----! She may really have liked him, you know."
"Oh, come now, yourself, Jim," retorted his wife good-humoredly. "Just because she has blue eyes! No, if Leila really liked anybody I always had the notion it was Barry--but she _wanted_ Bobby."
For a long moment Cousin Jim was silent, turning the thing over with his cigar. Maria Angelina sat still as a mouse, fearful to breathe lest the bewildering revelations cease. Cousin Jane, over her second cup of coffee, had the air of a humorous and superior oracle.
Then Mr. Blair said slowly, "And Bobby couldn't see her?"
He had an air of asking if Bobby were indeed of adamant and Mrs. Blair hesitated imperceptibly over the sweeping negative. Equally slowly, "Oh, Bobby _liked_ her, of course--she may have turned his head," she threw out, "but I don't believe he ever lost it for a moment. And after he met Ruth that summer at Plattsburg----"
The implication floated there, tenuous, iridescent. Even to Maria Angelina's eyes it was an arch of promise.
Ruth was their daughter, the cousin of her own age. And the unknown Bobby was some one who liked Ruth. And he was some one whom this Leila Grey had tried to ensnare--although all the time Mrs. Blair suspected her of liking more the Signor Barry Elder.