"Why, was Justice blind? I thought that was Love," said Maud Vanneck, gayly airing her ignorance. I couldn't help thinking--nor could Somerled, I'm sure--that Aline looked more like Love-in-a-mist than stern Justice; but I feared that he had definitely ceased to regard her from the love point of view, if ever he'd inclined to it.
Aline, who had heard nothing yet about Mrs. Bal, was anxious for the story. I saw that Somerled desired me to speak, but I threw the responsibility on him. I wanted to know how he would tell the story; but I might have guessed that he would be as laconic, as non-committal as possible, and that, much as he might yearn to do so, he would not criticise Barrie's mother.
"I think she admired her daughter," he said quietly, "but being what she is, and looking no more than twenty-five, what can one expect? Of course the sister fraud will be found out sooner or later; but the important thing in Mrs. Bal's mind seems to be that it shall be later."
"Is it right for us to help her deceive poor Mr. Bennett?" asked Maud Vanneck, who is a person of earnest convictions.
I chuckled at hearing the big chap called "poor," perhaps for the first time in his life; and even Somerled smiled.
"None of us are pledging ourselves to lie for the lady," said he. "We simply hold our tongues. If Bennett asks Mrs. Bal to be his wife, he's not the sharp man of affairs he's supposed to be if he expects to find her a mirror of truth. When he discovers that she has a grown-up daughter he'll shrug his shoulders, and perhaps never even let her know she's been found out. I'm not very well acquainted with Bennett, but I've met him a few times, and his most agreeable social quality seems to me his strong, rather rough sense of humour. I expect he'll see the funny side of being hoodwinked by Mrs. Bal. And a few years more or less on her age--what do they matter to him? He's forty-five; and on the whole he couldn't get a wife to suit him better."
"I have a sneaking sympathy with Mrs. Bal," confessed Aline, in her gentlest voice. "She's conquered all of you men, and has no further fear of you; but I feel that she's trembling in her shoes because of Maud and me. I should love to reassure her and let her know that we're not cats."