As he listened he was supported by the fact that he did not lose consciousness of the eyes and the figure.But for these it is probable that he would have gone blind with fury at certain points which forced themselves upon him.The first was that there had been an absurd and immense expenditure which would simply benefit his son and not himself.He could not sell or borrow money on what had been given.Apparently the place had been re-established on a footing such as it had not rested upon during his own generation, or his father's.As he loathed life in the country, it was not he who would enjoy its luxury, but his wife and her child.The second point was that these people--this girl--had somehow had the sharpness to put themselves in the right, and to place him in a position at which he could not complain without putting himself in the wrong.Public opinion would say that benefits had been heaped upon him, that the correct thing had been done correctly with the knowledge and approval of the legal advisers of his family.
It had been a masterly thing, that visit to Townlinson &Sheppard.He was obliged to aid his self-control by a glance at the eyelashes.She was a new sort of girl, this Betty, whose childhood he had loathed, and, to his jaded taste, novelty appealed enormously.Her attraction for him was also added to by the fact that he was not at all sure that there was not combined with it a pungent spice of the old detestation.He was repelled as well as allured.She represented things which he hated.First, the mere material power, which no man can bully, whatsoever his humour.It was the power he most longed for and, as he could not hope to possess it, most sneered at and raged against.Also, as she talked, it was plain that her habit of self-control and her sense of resource would be difficult to deal with.He was a survival of the type of man whose simple creed was that women should not possess resources, as when they possessed them they could rarely be made to behave themselves.
But while he thought these things, he walked by her side and both listened and talked smiling the agreeable smile.
"You will pardon my dull bewilderment," he said."It is not unnatural, is it--in a mere outsider?"And Betty, with the beautiful impersonal smile, said:
"We felt it so unfortunate that even your solicitors did not know your address."When, at length, they turned and strolled towards the house, a carriage was drawing up before the door, and at the sight of it, Betty saw her companion slightly lift his eyebrows.Lady Anstruthers had been out and was returning.The groom got down from the box, and two men-servants appeared upon the steps.Lady Anstruthers descended, laughing a little as she talked to Ughtred, who had been with her.She was dressed in clear, pale grey, and the soft rose lining of her parasol warmed the colour of her skin.
Sir Nigel paused a second and put up his glass.
"Is that my wife?" he said."Really! She quite recalls New York."The agreeable smile was on his lips as he hastened forward.
He always more or less enjoyed coming upon Rosalie suddenly.
The obvious result was a pleasing tribute to his power.
Betty, following him, saw what occurred.
Ughtred saw him first, and spoke quick and low.
"Mother!" he said.
The tone of his voice was evidently enough.Lady Anstruthers turned with an unmistakable start.The rose lining of her parasol ceased to warm her colour.In fact, the parasol itself stepped aside, and she stood with a blank, stiff, white face.
"My dear Rosalie," said Sir Nigel, going towards her.
"You don't look very glad to see me."
He bent and kissed her quite with the air of a devoted husband.Knowing what the caress meant, and seeing Rosy's face as she submitted to it, Betty felt rather cold.After the conjugal greeting he turned to Ughtred.
"You look remarkably well," he said.
Betty came forward.
"We met in the park, Rosy," she explained."We have been talking to each other for half an hour."The atmosphere which had surrounded her during the last three months had done much for Lady Anstruthers' nerves.
She had the power to recover herself.Sir Nigel himself saw this when she spoke.
"I was startled because I was not expecting to see you," she said."I thought you were still on the Riviera.I hope you had a pleasant journey home.""I had an extraordinarily pleasant surprise in finding your sister here," he answered.And they went into the house.