But it suddenly occurred
to her that she would be obliged to state how she became aware of this
misfortune, and with it came an instinctive aversion to speak of her
meeting with the inventor. She would wait until Mrs. Randolph told her.
But although that lady was engaged in a low-voiced discussion in French
with Emile and Adele, which instantly ceased at her approach, there was
no allusion made to the new calamity. "You need not telegraph to your
father," she said as Rose approached, "he has already telegraphed to you
for news; as you were out, and the messenger was waiting an answer, we
opened the dispatch, and sent one, telling him that you were all right,
and that he need not hurry here on your account. So you are satisfied,
I hope." A few hours ago this would have been true, and Rose would have
probably seen in the action of her hostess only a flattering motherly
supervision; there was, in fact, still a lingering trace of trust in her
mind yet she was conscious that she would have preferred to answer the
dispatch herself, and to have let her father come.
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