’You are aware of it then, Miss Mohun?  Yes, the young gentleman is come back, not a bit daunted.  Yesterday evening what does he do but drive up in a cab with a great bouquet, and a basketful of grapes, and what not!  Poor Kally, she ran in to me, and begged me as a favour to come downstairs with her, and I could do no less.  And I assure you, Miss Mohun, no queen could be more dignified, nor more modest than she was in rejecting his gifts, and keeping him in check.  Poor dear, when he was gone she burst out crying—–­a thing I never knew of her before; not that she cared for him, but she felt it a cruel wrong to her poor mother to send away the grapes she longed after; and so she will feel these just a providence.’

‘Then is Mrs. White confined to her room?’

’For more than a fortnight.  For that matter the thing was easier, for she had encouraged the young man as far as in her lay, poor thing, though my husband and young Alexis both told her what they knew of him, and that it would not be for Kally’s happiness, let alone the offence to his father.’

‘Then it really went as far as that?’

’Miss Mohun, I would be silent as the grave if I did not know that the old lady went talking here and there, never thinking of the harm she was doing.  She was so carried away by the idea of making a lady of Kally.  She says she was a beauty herself, though you would not think it now, and she is perfectly puffed up about Kally.  So she actually lent an ear when the young man came persuading Kally to get married and go off to Italy with him, where he made sure he could come over Mr. White with her beauty and relationship and all—–­among the myrtle groves—–­that was his expression—­where she would have an association worthy of her.  I don’t quite know how he meant it to be brought about, but he is one who would stick at nothing, and of course Kally would not hear of it, and answered him so as one would think he would never have had the face to address her again, but poor Mrs. White has done nothing but fret over it, and blame her daughter for undutifulness, and missing the chance of making all their fortunes—–­breaking her heart and her health, and I don’t know what besides.  She is half a foreigner, you see, and does not understand, and she is worse than no one to that poor girl.’

‘And you say he is come back as bad as ever.’

’Or worse, you may say, Miss Mohun; absence seems only to have set him the more upon her, and I am afraid that Mrs. White’s talk, though it may not have been to many, has been enough to set it about the place; and in cases like that, it is always the poor young woman as gets the blame—–­especially with the gentleman’s own people.’

‘I am afraid so.’

’And you see she is in a manner at his mercy, being son to one of the heads of the firm, and in a situation of authority.’

‘What can she do all day at the office?’