Cheerfully Mrs. Austen smiled. Margaret's start, her heightened colour,
her visible annoyance, these things comforted her. A grandee of Spain
warmed his hands at the auto-da-fe. There are people just like him.
There are people that take comfort in another's distress. Mrs. Austen
did not know that she resembled them. She had nothing but Margaret's
welfare in view. Nothing but that and her own. Her own though came
first.
She raised the fan. "My dear, you misjudge me. I always said that he is
a good young man and I stick to it. He is good, far too good, too good
to be true." With that, lowering the fan, she produced a trump.
"Downstairs, a moment ago, he told me so."