thout resentment:

"I did not wish to see him."

There was a momentary pause; then this unexpected weakness was met
with a blow.

"You were eager enough to see him last night."

"I can only hope," murmured Isabel aloud though wholly to herself,
"that I did not make this plain to him."

"But what has happened since?"

Nothing was said for a while. The two women had been unable to see
each other clearly. A moment later Isabel crossed the room quickly
and taking the chair in front of her grandmother, searched that
treacherous face imploringly for something better in it than she
had ever seen there. Could she trust the untrustworthy? Would
falseness itself for once be true?

"Grandmother," she said, and her voice betrayed how she shrank from
her own words, "before you sent for me I was about to come down. I
wished to speak with you about a very delicate matter, a very
serious matter. You have often reproached me for not taking you
into my confidence. I am going to give you my confidence now."

At any other moment the distrust and indignity contained in the
tone of this avowal would not have escaped Mrs. Conyers. But
surprise riveted her attention. Isabel gave her no time further:

"A thing has occurred in regard to which we must act together for
our own sakes--on account of the servants in the house--on account
of our friends, so that there may be no gossip, no scandal."

Nothing at times so startles us as our own words. As the girl
uttered the word "scandal," she rose frightened as though it faced
her and began to walk excitedly backward and forward. Scandal had
never touched her life. She had never talked scandal; had never
thought scandal. Dwelling under the same roof with it as the master
passion of a life and forced to encounter it in so many repulsive
ways, she had needed little virtue to regard it with abhorrence.

Now she perceived that it might be perilously near herself. When
all questions were asked and no reasons were given, would not the
seeds of gossip fly and sprout and bear their kinds about her path:
and the truth could never be told. She must walk on through the
years, possibly misjudged, giving no sign.

After a while she returned to her seat.

"You must promise me one thing," she said with white and trembling
lips. "I give you my confidence as far as I can; beyond that I
will not go. And you shall not ask. You are not to try to find
out from me or any one else more than I