Babiole gave her mother an alarmed pleading look, which happily absorbed my attention and neutralised the effect of this speech. I could have borne worse things than poor Mrs. Ellmer's rather tactless and insipid conversation for the sake of watching her daughter's mobile little face, and I am afraid they must have wished me away long before I could make up my mind to go. Babiole came to the outer door with me, and I seized the opportunity to ask her what they were going to do.
'Mrs. Ellmer doesn't look strong enough to act again at present,' I suggested.
'No. And even if she were, you see----' She stopped.
'Of course. Her place would be filled up?'
'Yes,' very sorrowfully. Then she looked up again, her face grown suddenly bright and hopeful, as with a flash of sunshine. 'But you needn't be afraid for us. Mamma is so clever, and I am young and strong; we shall be all right. We should be all right now if only----'
'Why, you see, you mustn't think it's mamma's fault that we are left in a corner like this; you don't know how she can save and manage on--oh! so little. But whenever she has, by care and making things do, saved up a little money, it--it all goes, you know.'
The sudden reserve which showed itself in her ingenuous manner towards the last words was so very suggestive that the true explanation of this phenomenon flashed upon my mind.
'Then somebody else puts in a claim,' I suggested.
The girl laughed a little, her full and sensitive red lips opening widely over ivory-white even teeth, and she nodded appreciation of my quick perception.
'Somebody else wants such a lot of things that somebody else's wife and daughter can do without,' she said, with a comical little look of resignation. And, encouraged by my sympathetic silence, she went on, 'And he has so much talent, Mr. Maude. If he would only go on painting as poor mamma goes on acting, he could make us all rich--if he liked. And instead of that----'
'Babiole!' cried her mother's voice, rather tartly.
'Yes, mamma.' Then she added, low and quickly, with a frightened glance back in the dusk, towards the door of their room, 'It's high treason to say even so much as this, but it is so hard to know how she tries and yet not to speak of it to any one. I don't mean to blame my father, Mr. Maude, but you know what men are----'