"It is curious that most things are, as a rule.There is always the parallel of profit and loss whether one sees it or not.The profits are happiness and friendship--enjoyment of life and approbation.If the inherited temperament supplies one with all one wants of such things, it cannot be called a loss, of course.""You think, however, that mine has not brought me much?""I do not know.It is you who know."
"Well," viciously, "there HAS been a sort of luxury in it in lashing out with one's heels, and smashing things--and in knowing that people prefer to keep clear."She lifted her shoulders a little.
"Then perhaps it has paid."
"No," suddenly and fiercely, "damn it, it has not!"And she actually made no reply to that.
"What do you mean to do?" he questioned as bluntly as before.He knew she would understand what he meant.
"Not much.To see that Rosy is not unhappy any more.
We can prevent that.She was out of repair--as the house was.She is being rebuilt and decorated.She knows that she will be taken care of.""I know her better than you do," with a laugh."She will not go away.She is too frightened of the row it would make--of what I should say.I should have plenty to say.I can make her shake in her shoes."Betty let her eyes rest full upon him, and he saw that she was softly summing him up--quite without prejudice, merely in interested speculation upon the workings of type.
"You are letting the inherited temperament run away with you at this moment," she reflected aloud--her quiet scrutiny almost abstracted."It was foolish to say that."He had known it was foolish two seconds after the words had left his lips.But a temper which has been allowed to leap hedges, unchecked throughout life, is in peril of forming a habit of taking them even at such times as a leap may land its owner in a ditch.This last was what her interested eyes were obviously saying.It suited him best at the moment to try to laugh.
"Don't look at me like that," he threw off."As if you were calculating that two and two make four.""No prejudice of mine can induce them to make five or six--or three and a half," she said."No prejudice of mine--or of yours."
The two and two she was calculating with were the likelihoods and unlikelihoods of the inherited temperament, and the practical powers she could absolutely count on if difficulty arose with regard to Rosy.
He guessed at this, and began to make calculations himself.
But there was no further conversation for them, as they were obliged to rise to their feet to receive visitors.Lady Alanby of Dole and Sir Thomas, her grandson, were being brought out of the house to them by Rosalie.
He went forward to meet them--his manner that of the graceful host.Lady Alanby, having been welcomed by him, and led to the most comfortable, tree-shaded chair, found his bearing so elegantly chastened that she gazed at him with private curiosity.To her far-seeing and highly experienced old mind it seemed the bearing of a man who was "up to something." What special thing did he chance to be "up to"? His glance certainly lurked after Miss Vanderpoel oddly.
Was he falling in unholy love with the girl, under his stupid little wife's very nose?
She could not, however, give her undivided attention to him, as she wished to keep her eye on her grandson and--outrageously enough fit happened that just as tea was brought out and Tommy was beginning to cheer up and quite come out a little under the spur of the activities of handing bread and butter and cress sandwiches, who should appear but the two Lithcom girls, escorted by their aunt, Mrs.Manners, with whom they lived.As they were orphans without money, if the Manners, who were rather well off, had not taken them in, they would have had to go to the workhouse, or into genteel amateur shops, as they were not clever enough for governesses.
Mary, with her turned-up nose, looked just about as usual, but Jane had a new frock on which was exactly the colour of the big, appealing eyes, with their trick of following people about.She looked a little pale and pathetic, which somehow gave her a specious air of being pretty, which she really was not at all.The swaying young thinness of those very slight girls whose soft summer muslins make them look like delicate bags tied in the middle with fluttering ribbons, has almost invariably a foolish attraction for burly young men whose characters are chiefly marked by lack of forethought, and Lady Alanby saw Tommy's robust young body give a sort of jerk as the party of three was brought across the grass.After it he pulled himself together hastily, and looked stiff and pink, shaking hands as if his elbow joint was out of order, being at once too loose and too rigid.He began to be clumsy with the bread and butter, and, ceasing his talk with Miss Vanderpoel, fell into silence.Why should he go on talking?
he thought.Miss Vanderpoel was a cracking handsome girl, but she was too clever for him, and he had to think of all sorts of new things to say when he talked to her.And--well, a fellow could never imagine himself stretched out on the grass, puffing happily away at a pipe, with a girl like that sitting near him, smiling--the hot turf smelling almost like hay, the hot blue sky curving overhead, and both the girl and himself perfectly happy--chock full of joy--though neither of them were saying anything at all.You could imagine it with some girls--you DID imagine it when you wakened early on a summer morning, and lay in luxurious stillness listening to the birds singing like mad.
Lady Jane was a nicely-behaved girl, and she tried to keep her following blue eyes fixed on the grass, or on Lady Anstruthers, or Miss Vanderpoel, but there was something like a string, which sometimes pulled them in another direction, and once when this had happened--quite against her will--she was terrified to find Lady Alanby's glass lifted and fixed upon her.