But
she had another scruple still, and she expressed it in saying that she
should like Olive very much to find her when she came in.
"That's all very well," Ransom returned; "but does she think that she
only has a right to go out? Does she expect you to keep the house
because she's abroad? If she stays out long enough, she will find you
when she comes in."
"Her going out that way--it proves that she trusts me," Verena said,
with a candour which alarmed her as soon as she had spoken.
Her alarm was just, for Basil Ransom instantly caught up her words, with
a great mocking amazement. "Trusts you? and why shouldn't she trust you?
Are you a little girl of ten and she your governess? Haven't you any
liberty at all, and is she always watching you and holding you to an
account? Have you such vagabond instincts that you are only thought safe
when you are between four walls?" Ransom was going on to speak, in the
same tone, of her having felt it necessary to keep Olive in ignorance of
his visit to Cambridge--a fact they had touched on, by implication, in
their short talk at Mrs. Burrage's; but in a moment he saw that he had
said enough. As for Verena, she had said more than she meant, and the
simplest way to unsay it was to go and get her bonnet and jacket and let
him take her where he liked. Five minutes later he was walking up and
down the parlour, waiting while she prepared herself to go out.
They went up to the Central Park by the elevated railway, and Verena
reflected, as they proceeded, that anyway Olive was probably disposing
of her somehow at Mrs.
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