Of course, the catastrophe gave the whole
surface situation away, and I must say that those rather banal young
people behaved very humanely about it. There was nothing but interest of
the nicest kind, and, if she is going on with her career, it will be easy
enough for her to find engagements after this."
"Why shouldn't she go on?" his mother asked, with a suspicion which she
kept well out of sight.
"Well, as well as she could explain afterwards, the catastrophe took her
work out of the category of business and made her acceptance in it a
matter of sentiment."
"She explained it to you herself?"
"Yes, the general sympathy had penetrated to Mrs. Westangle, though I
don't say that she had been more than negatively indifferent to Miss
Shirley's claim on her before. As it was, she sent for me to her room
the next morning, and I found Miss Shirley alone there. She said Mrs.
Westangle would be down in a moment."
Now, indeed, Mrs. Verrian could not govern herself from saying, "I don't
like it, Philip."
"I knew you wouldn't. It was what I said to myself at the time. You
were so present with me that I seemed to have you there chaperoning the
interview." His mother shrugged, and he went on: "She said she wished to
tell me something first, and then she said, 'I want to do it while I have
the courage, if it's courage; perhaps it's just desperation.
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