Grafton went over to Paris to fetch Barbara, and Caroline and Young George went with him. It was decided almost at the last minute. Young George had no particular opinion of foreign parts, and was enjoying every moment of his time at home. But Jimmy, who came over on Friday to pay a formal call of congratulation to Beatrix, advised him not to be an ass. "A couple of days in Paris clears the cobwebs off a man's brain," he said. "England's the best place in the world, of course, but you're apt to get provincial if you don't run over to France occasionally. You see things from a different point of view." So Young George was persuaded. They would only be away from Saturday till Monday, and on the whole it would be rather a lark. He wanted to see Barbara too. There were lots of things to talk to her about, and he had never before come home for his holidays without finding her there to meet him. He had missed her during the first few days, more than he would have thought possible.
They arrived in Paris in the afternoon and descended at the Meurice. Leaving Caroline and her maid there, Grafton and Young George went off in a taxi-auto to collect Barbara from her 'family' which, thoughsomewhat decayed in fortune, still inhabited its ancestral hotel in the Faubourg Saint Germain. There was a Monsieur le Comte and a Madame la Comtesse, and a daughter of about Barbara's age. There were also half a dozen young English girls whom Madame la Comtesse made a great favour of receiving, but whose parents contributed the bulk of the income necessary to keep up the ancient dignity of the name. It was the genuine French family life which these English girls, also of irreproachable ancestry—that was asine qua non, or announced to be—were invited to share, and which Barbara said was as dull as ditchwater. They had their professors, and were taken about here and there, and they talked French. English was not permitted. Not a word was allowed to be spoken even among themselves, except as a special concession going to and from church on Sundays. As none of them were Catholics, Madame probably thought the greater sin might on these occasions include the lesser.
Barbara had altered; not in her affectionate impetuousness, for she almost overwhelmed her father and brother with the warmth of her embraces. But her hair, if not yet 'up' was no longer 'down.' She had grown taller and slimmer; she wore her pretty clothes as if she took an interest in them; and her speech and manner were the tiniest little bit affected by her three months' absence from English influences, though this she indignantly denied when Young George taxed her with putting on French frills.
"But as for French frills," she said, "there will besomething to be said about that later, but not to either of you. Why didn't my darling Caroline come to fetch me? Oh, Iamglad to see you, my darling old Daddy, and you too, my adorable Bunting. I wish the taxi was closed; I'd hug you both again. I haven't had half enough yet."
They had already told her about Beatrix's engagement, and she had expressed herself delighted. Now she wanted to hear more, and there was not much more to tell her. "Oh, well, I'll get it all out of Caroline," she said. "How's that little ass Jimmy Beckley?"
"You'll be able to talk French to him. He's jolly good at it," said Young George.
"Idon'tthink," said Barbara. "No more French till I come back here. Oh, how lovely it is to be going home! Can't we start to-morrow, Dad?"
"What do you think we've come here for?" asked Grafton. "We are going to enjoy ourselves."
"Oh, yes. I'd forgotten that Paris was supposed to be a gay city. I think it's the dullest hole in the world. Look, there's the Odéon. Oh, what a thing to call itself a theatre! We get taken there, you know. We saw 'Esther' last week. It was like going to church. Are we going to see something amusing to-night, Dad? I believe thereareamusing theatres to go to in Paris."
"I believe there are," said Grafton. "Yes, we'll go somewhere."
"I say, you know, this isn't half bad," said YoungGeorge as they sped across the Tuileries gardens, with the great purple mass of the Louvre on one side of them and the gay flower beds on the other, with the long vista up to the Arc de Triomphe. "I like it better than Hyde Park." Which was a great concession for so sturdy an Englishman.
"There's a concert every afternoon in a sort of open-air theatre," said Barbara. "We go there sometimes. Perhaps I shouldn't mind Paris so much if I weren't in a family. But how joyful it will be to get back to England again! I'm longing for bacon for breakfast. I think French food is much overrated."
They dined early, at the 'Ambassadeurs,' and Barbara said that the food was better than she was accustomed to. They were a merry, talkative quartette, and people looked at them admiringly and talked about them. Those young English girls, with their fair hair and their delicious colouring—when they began to be beautiful they almost exaggerated it. There were not a few who would have liked to make theentente cordialethat evening with this English group.
They went to the Opéra Comique and heard 'Louise,' that poignant story in which a daughter's love brings a father's sorrow. They were all fond of music and knew something about it, even Young George, who had asked for an opera rather than a play. He and Barbara chatted gaily between the acts, but Caroline, whose sensitive fibre responded to the emotion of those she loved, divined that her father was moved by the music, and the unfolding of the story. Beforethe last act, in which Louise finally forsakes the father who has loved her and whom she has loved, dying in his room, Grafton said: "I think I've had enough. I'll stay outside and smoke; and wait for you."
He and Caroline had read what was coming, sitting in a corner of thefoyer. "Let's all go home," she said. "I expect Barbara and Bunting would just as soon. They have lots to talk about."
Barbara and Bunting made no objection, and as it was still early they went to supper at Henry's round the corner. Barbara said that evidently Madame la Comtesse didn't know what cooking was.
When Caroline and Barbara were alone that night, Barbara said: "That was rather a beastly play for Dad to see. I suppose that's why we came away before the end. I hope B isn't behaving towards him as she did last time."
Caroline was surprised. She had not credited Barbara with that amount of intuition. "No, he's happy about B," she said. "And he likes Dick immensely."
"I said it would be B when we first set eyes on Dick, you know," Barbara said.
Caroline remembered that she had, and laughed. "You're very far-sighted, darling," she said.
"Well, I do keep my eyes open," said Barbara. "I know I'm ajeune fille, and all that sort of thing, but I'm not ajeunefool. I suppose Louise wasn't married to that posturing poopstick?"
Caroline did not reply to this question. "It was rather too sad," she said, "though the music waslovely. I think I should have stuck to the nice old father if I'd been Louise."
"I'm quite sure I should," said Barbara. "I think the whole business is awful tommy-rot."
Caroline imagined her to be commenting upon the emotions and attractions of love, and left it there.
The next day they motored out to Versailles, lunched there, and saw the fountains play, and the crowds. On their way back they had tea at a restaurant in the Bois, and saw more crowds. In the evening they went out to the Parc Montsouris, on the very outskirts of Paris, and dined there in the open.
"Food and people," said Barbara. "Food and people all the time. Now I know what Paris really means."
The little restaurant on the edge of the Parc Montsouris is not very widely known, and the park itself is right away from everywhere. There were half a dozen tables laid on the verandah, and some people already dining there. But they were not of the highest fashion, which forsakes Paris in the month of August.
They went to feed the ducks by the lake, while their dinner was being prepared. As they came back a man and a woman came out on to the verandah with thepatronin deferential attendance. The man was in evening dress, and the woman beautifully gowned. It was she who was doing the talking, in the most voluble of Parisian French, while thepatronwas shrugging his shoulders and answering her with a sly, quickmanner, apparently annoying to her, but amusing to her companion.
He had his back half turned towards the Graftons, but as they approached the verandah he moved. It was Lassigny, and he saw them as plainly as they all saw him.
"We'll go across the bridge," said Grafton. "I don't suppose dinner's quite ready yet." He turned his back on the restaurant, and his children followed him.
They saw by his face, which was dark and angry, that he wanted nothing said about the meeting. When they came back a little later, their dinner was ready, but Lassigny and his companion were not there.
The incident was soon forgotten by Barbara and Young George as they all made merry over their meal. But Caroline knew that her father had been deeply disturbed by it, in spite of his successful efforts to amuse them. She saw once or twice that reminiscent frowning look come over his face which she had only known during the time that Beatrix had been waiting for Lassigny. He had never worn it before, nor since the news of Lassigny's marriage in America had come to them and broken it all off short. It troubled her to see it again now. Surely he must know that it was all over with Beatrix! It was awkward having met Lassigny like that. But they would not see him again, or, if they did in London, they need take no notice of him. Apparently that was what he wished, as well as her father.
The dusk came on, and the park emptied itself. The lawns and the water seen between the tree trunks were silvered by the moon to mysterious beauty. "It's like a scene in a play," said Barbara. "Do let's have one more little walk round, Dad."
She and Young George hurried off to the lake, while Grafton paid the bill, and Caroline stayed with him. Then they followed the other two.
Caroline slipped her hand into her father's arm. "Darling," she said, "don't let it worry you—meeting him. It's bound to have happened some time or other. We've got it over now."
"I'm glad B wasn't here," was all he said.
"So am I. But if she had wanted curing, I think that would have cured her. Fancy choosing that for his wife, after knowing B!"
"It wasn't his wife," he said quickly.
Caroline was silent, blushing to the roots of her hair in the darkness. Then she said: "I think I should have come to know that—afterwards. I felt there was something. Oh, Dad, supposing it had been B he had married, and that had happened!"
"Yes," he said. "And your Aunt Katharine and Mary and the rest of them were all at me for trying to stop it. And B almost cut herself off from me, because—because I knew what would happen if she did marry him."
She was struck with compunction because she also had thought him not altogether reasonable in his dislike for Lassigny, whom he had not disliked, but hadinvited to his house, before his engagement to Beatrix. She had liked him herself, and had known him longer than Beatrix had. Now she had a horror of him. All her soul, unsullied by the thought of evil, revolted against what had been forced upon it. Her father had known all along what he was. It had not prevented his treating him as a friend, or permitting him to associate with his daughters. She put that fact away in her mind, for consideration later. But he too had revolted, when it had come to giving up one of his daughters to him. And yet, as he had said, all the pressure had been against him, and if Lassigny had come back for Beatrix at the end of the six months in which it had been agreed he was not to see her, he would have given her up to him.
What were men like, under the surface they presented to the women who gave them their friendship and confidence—men who lived in the world of Lassigny, yes, and of Francis Parry, and Dick, and most of those among whom she had made her friends? She felt shaken by this glimpse she had had into what lay beneath all the commerce of life as she had known it, the life of pleasure, innocent enough to her and such as her, but lived on a crust of artificiality through which one's foot might slip at any time. Beneath it there were untold depths of mire in which one might even be engulfed, as Beatrix had nearly been engulfed. Her pleasure in those days in Paris was spoiled. She longed for the sure ground of her quiet country life, in which one lived from day to day occupying andinteresting one's self in one's duties and quiet pleasures, with the beauties and changes of nature to freshen the spirit, and all around the lives of others with which one could mingle, and trust them not to contain shameful secrets.
So she thought of it, not yet taught by age and experience that evil is everywhere where men and women are congregated together, and may rear its head in a country village as well as in a foreign city.
As she and Barbara were alone together that night, Barbara said seriously: "I can't think how B can ever have liked Lassigny. I never did. Although I didn't know anything in those days, I felt it about him all the same."
Caroline suddenly saw Barbara with new eyes. She and Bunting had always been called 'the children,' and treated as such; and up till the time Barbara had left home, only three months before, she had been a tomboy, sexless almost, certainly with no appeal that would bring out the deeper feminine confidences. But she had always had a shrewd eye for character, and Caroline remembered that she had avoided Lassigny's society when he had stayed at the Abbey with a large party of guests, saying that there were other men she liked better.
But now she was a woman, with a woman's sensibilities, though her childish freedom of speech and some of her childish ways still clung to her. The very alteration in her appearance, slight as it had seemed at first, marked a stage in her growth. She stood by thewindow, fingering a chain she had taken off. In her pretty evening frock, nearly as long as Caroline's own, she seemed already to be 'grown up.' Caroline saw her as a companion to her such as Beatrix had been, one whom she could treat as an equal in understanding, if not in experience, and not as a much younger sister from whom many things must be kept.
"Of course I know what sort of woman that was he was with," Barbara went on. "You don't live in Paris even as I have to, without knowing the difference. I hate it all; and I hate him. Why couldn't B see?"
"I don't know," said Caroline slowly. "But I didn't see either."
Barbara looked up quickly, and a soft look came into her face. "You're so sweet and good, darling," she said. "You know, I believe that I see more in some ways than you and B—I don't mean horrid things like that, but all sorts of things—about people, I mean."
"I think you have more brains than either I or B," said Caroline, with a smile.
"I don't think it's brains so much. I don't know what it is, quite. I know I'm not soniceas you, or B either."
They had begun to undress, helping one another. Caroline kissed her. "You're every bit as nice, darling, and much cleverer."
"I'm sharp, and amusing," she said. "Perhaps I'm rather too sharp. I shouldn't like people to be afraid of me because of my tongue. I'd much ratherbe like you, and have everybody love me. Cara, when B gets married, you and I will be a lot to each other, won't we? I shall be quite grown up by the time I come home for good; I'm nearly grown up now. I suppose I shall always be much the same with Bunting, but I want to be something different with you."
"Darling, it's just what I've been thinking about. I shall miss B awfully, when she goes; but I shall have you, to make up. And I think it's quite true that you can see more into things than I can—some things. Dad told me once I hadn't got a masculine brain."
"No, you're all feeling. But it's right feeling. I don't believe you would ever have fallen in love with Lassigny, though you didn't dislike him as I did. I'm never quite so sure about B. Of course I love her awfully, and she's very sweet, and good, too. But I think she wants somebody to look after her. Do you think Dick is the right man for her?"
"Why, don't you? It's you who can judge."
"Well, then, I do, on the whole. I think he'll want to be master, absolutely. He has that sort of strength. He wouldn't do for me, even if I loved him, and all that. I should want somebody I could be more equal with. But I think it will suit B—to adapt herself to what he wants. The only thing I'm not quite sure about is whether he'll give her exactly the sort of life she wants. He has his job and he is keen on it; and of course she won't take anenormousinterest in that, though she'll like to see him go up in it. Then he likes country life, and she doesn't particularly. She likesgoing about much more than you do. I don't quite see B settling down and living at Wilborough most of her life."
Caroline was rather struck by this view. "You've thought it out," she said.
"Yes, I like thinking things out. Of course I may be all wrong because I don't take all thislovebusiness enough into account. That may alter everything."
Caroline laughed outright. "You think it's all tommy-rot, don't you?" she asked.
"Well, I know it can't be, really, because it seems to take the most sensible people. I suppose most of them get married because of it, at least in England. But I shouldthink—I don't know—that the happiest husbands and wives are those that like the same sort of thing, not those that are most in love with each other to begin with."
"I used to think that," said Caroline. "I'm not sure that I do now. I have never loved anybody—in the way that B has, I mean—so perhaps I don't know more than you do about it. But I do think it ought to begin with that. I suppose marriage isn't just having a companion you like. If it were I shouldn't want to marry at all, because I have just the companionship I want at home."
"Francis Parry wanted to marry you, didn't he?"
"You're very sharp, darling," said Caroline with a smile. "I didn't know you'd noticed anything."
"You and B have always treated me rather too much like a baby. I haven't minded much, or perhapsyou wouldn't have, for I should have talked to you about things more. But it's going to be different now. There are lots of things I shall want to talk to you about. I like Francis; but I'm rather glad you didn't marry him, all the same. I think he'd have made exactly the right husband for B, though."
Caroline laughed. "That's a new idea," she said. "Do you think Dick would have made exactly the right husband for me?"
"Well, yes, I do," was Barbara's rather surprising answer. "You'll be happier settled down, when you do marry."
"You don't settle down much as a sailor's wife."
"No, but he'll live at Wilborough by and bye, or his wife will. That would suit you. It would be like going on living at Abington. But Francis would live sometimes in London and sometimes in the country, and he and his wife would go about a lot. That's just what would suit B."
"Well, it just shows that love has most to do with it, after all," said Caroline. "I like Dick, too, but I should never want to marry him. If I had to marry either of them, I'd much rather marry Francis. And I believe that if anything were to happen to stop B marrying Dick, she'd feel it more than she did before."
Beatrix was married early in September, on a day of golden sunshine, which bathed the house, the church, the garden, and the park, in a glow of calm, soft beauty. It was the prettiest country wedding that could be imagined, and one of the gayest. The house, of course, was full from attic to cellar. Beatrix's relations on both sides converged from all quarters of the United Kingdom, and even from Continental holiday resorts, and there was room for a few intimate friends of the family as well. When every corner of the house had been allocated, and still more people whose claims could not be ignored had to be got in somehow, three or four empty bedrooms at the Vicarage were commandeered, and furnishedad hoc. This not providing enough beds, rooms were taken at the inn. More remaining to be arranged for almost at the last minute, Stone Cottage, which had remained empty since Mrs. Walter had left it, was furnished as a dormitory for sundry bachelors. On the night before the wedding between thirty and forty guests, who were staying in the house or its various dependencies, dined there, besides another score or so from Wilborough, and other houses round. The old vaulted refectory of the Abbey, which had remained empty andunused for generations, was the scene of this lively banquet. It was to be used as a ball-room the next night. "We shall want cheering up when you leave us, darling," her father had said to Beatrix. "Your old Daddy will be the gayest of the gay, but his merriment will be hollow and his laugh a mockery."
Only Caroline knew how much of truth there was in this light statement. He had behaved beautifully throughout the somewhat feverish preparations that had had to be made for a marriage at such short notice. Beatrix had rushed to and from London in a state of happy excitement. When she had been at home she had devoted herself entirely to Dick when he had been there, and when he had not been there she had either talked about him or gone away to brood over him. For when once the barriers had been broken down she had succumbed completely. Caroline smiled to herself sometimes as she thought of the doubts she had felt as to Beatrix marrying without love, or with not enough love. She was made to give herself entirely when she did love, and she now loved Dick with an intensity and completeness that raised him to the seventh heaven of bliss, but seemed to leave little room for any other sort of love. Caroline smiled also, but rather ruefully, when she remembered her father's satisfaction over the place that would be left for him in this new adjustment of his beloved child's affections. She invited confidences from him on the subject, but he gave her none. The complaints and resentments he had expressed over the affair with Lassigny had givenplace to a determination to keep all that he must have been feeling about this new affair to himself, except the incidental satisfaction to be gained from it. He was genial and companionable to Dick, and had his reward there in the liking, which was growing into affection, that the younger man had towards him. He was humourous and chaffing with Beatrix, and made no appeals to her for the solace she now almost entirely withheld from him. Perhaps he had his reward there, too, for she must have enjoyed the conviction that she was greatly pleasing him, although she failed to signify the same in the usual manner. The only comment he permitted himself to make to Caroline about the change of wind was when he said that he should hate losing B, but rather looked forward to settling down again after her departure. But he immediately added that it was a great thing to see the dear child so happy, and with so good a chance before her of happiness for the rest of her life. So even Caroline, his confidant, was not to know the sadness with which he was wrestling on his own account, and the new adjustments he was being forced to make, when he had thought that further need for adjustment was to have been spared him.
Caroline, indeed, was having to make a few adjustments on her own account. The distressed and uncertain Beatrix who had come sobbing to her on the night after her engagement, and had come closer to her sister's heart than ever before, was distressed and uncertain no longer, and had no need of her now,except as a recipient for love's raptures. It was 'Dick, Dick, Dick,' all the time. It spoke well for Dick's quality that Beatrix's family liked him as well at the end of his few weeks' engagement as they had at the beginning. It was he who kept up for them the sense of somebody added to it instead of somebody being taken away. 'Head over ears' as he was, and showed himself to be, he still showed them, whenever Beatrix allowed him the opportunity, that his reception among them added and would further add to the satisfactions of his life. It was not only to be just him and Beatrix, though the bliss to be gained from just him and Beatrix was at present almost beyond his power to grasp. It seemed also to be beyond Beatrix's power to grasp for the time being. She had removed herself from them in spirit, already, and had told Caroline that what she should really like, for the first few years of her marriage, would be for Dick to be ordered to the Pacific, and for herself to inhabit an island to which he could pay occasional visits, leaving her to think about him all alone in the intervals.
Grafton had a moment with her alone just before the ceremony. All the guests were in the church, from which the drone of the organ came across to them, standing in the hall until the clock should strike the hour. The house was empty and strangely quiet. They would have to walk across the few carpeted yards that lay between it and the church between packed masses of neighbourly and intensely sympathetic spectators; but they were waiting just insidethe doorway where they could neither see nor be seen.
"Well, I'm going to give you up, my darling," he said. "I shan't have you alone again before I go. Give me one more kiss all to myself."
She lifted her veil carefully, and held up her sweet, happy face for his kiss. "Mind my hair, Dad," she said.
The church clock struck. "Now we'll go over," he said. "You're not nervous, are you?"
She laughed. "Not a bit," she said. But her hand on his arm trembled a little as they got into the crowded church, and walked up the aisle with all the faces turned or half-turned towards them. That was all the emotion she showed, or had shown. It was all pure untroubled happiness with her.
The reception was held in the drawing-room and morning-room, which opened into one another, and both of them into the formal garden. The broad path which ran along this side of the house had been paved with stone some months before, and the whole space available, indoors and outdoors, permitted of free circulation among the guests.
Lady Mansergh, resplendent in mauve silk, with an enormous picture hat surmounting her red-gold hair, came waddling up to Grafton, her fat good-natured face wreathed in smiles. "Well, it's all over now," she said, "and if you're half as pleased as I am, Mr. Grafton, you're very pleased indeed. What asweetbride! I've never seen one more lovely. If I'd donewhat I wanted to I should have broken down and cried. I'm not Dick's mother, but I felt like it. Oh, it's aperfectmarriage and I wanted it from the very beginning."
"And yet a year ago, you were telling me that I was spoiling the child's life for her because I wouldn't let her marry somebody else," he said with a smile.
"Ah, you knew better than me, after all," she said, tapping him confidentially on the arm. "But youarepleased this time, aren't you? Dick says if he hadn't been as much in love with the sweet child as he is, he'd have liked to marry her all the same, because of her family. Now that's what I call arealcompliment. Youarea nice family, you know, and I'm sure I don't know how we did without you all here so long. Youarepleased, aren't you, Mr. Grafton?"
"My dear lady, I'm absolutely delighted," he said. "It's just the sort of marriage I should like for all my girls; and Dick is one of the best fellows that ever stepped."
Old Sir Alexander also had a word of satisfaction to express. "Always wanted a daughter," he said, "but never expected to get such a pretty one. Lucky fellow, Dick! Arranged for another wedding present for them this morning, Grafton. Given Dick Manor Farm. Want 'em to make their home there, and have the girl near us when she can't be with Dick. Won't have to wait long, I dare say, before they come in for the lot; but it'll be a few years yet if this infernal lumbago doesn't take me."
"Manor Farm! That's the old house right the other end of your property, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's a pity it isn't this end. Then we could have had her between us. Still, it's one of the prettiest houses I've got, and I'm going to put it back to what it was before it was turned into a farmhouse, and make it all nice for 'em. I've told the child, and she's delighted. She knows how to play the daughter, Grafton. She'll make a lot of difference to me in my old age, bless her!"
Grafton had already been bombarded with congratulations from his own and his wife's relations, but they were not over yet, nor would be until the guests had all departed. Lady Grafton, who had remonstrated with him about his refusal to accept Lassigny as the desired husband for Beatrix, had admitted handsomely that this was a far more satisfactory marriage for her, but was never tired of hearing him say so. She came up to him with a glass of champagne in one hand and a piece of wedding cake in the other.
"Well, my dear George," she said. "Here's the first of them gone. I hope you're as pleased about it as you ought to be. You won't like losing the child, but you couldn't expect to keep her with you always, and she's married just the right sort of man."
"Wonderful powers of observation you have, Mary," he said. "I shouldn't like to disappoint you in any way, and I'm glad you're pleased with me."
"Ah now you're being sarcastic, but I'm sure I don't know what for. I'll behave handsomely to you,and admit that you turned out to be right a year ago, and all the rest of us turned out to be wrong, including B herself, apparently. I've never seen a girl more devoted to the man she's going to marry. Perfectly beautiful, I call it. She hasn't got a thought for anybody else. She'll make him a splendid wife, and I must say you deserve a great deal of credit for the way in which you've brought upallyour girls. They have learnt to be everything to you, and I expect you've wanted a good deal of humouring, as all men do, though it doesn't show on the surface. If they have been able to manage you so well, they'll know how to manage their husbands, which most of us have to learn after we're married to them. I'm sure the trouble I had first of all with my dear old James, before I got into his ways—"
"Or he got into yours," suggested Grafton.
She allowed herself to be diverted. "Now, George," she said, "that's a thoroughly man's speech.IsJames happy or is he not?"
"The Bank Rate is very satisfactory at present," said Grafton. "I think both James and I are as happy as we can expect to be."
Lady Handsworth also admitted handsomely that his opposition to Lassigny had borne good fruit. "This is a more satisfactory marriage than that would have been, even if M. de Lassigny had been everything you could have wished him to be," she said. "I am glad it has come about so quickly, and so naturally, George. I did say to you, I remember, that herfirst love meant so much to a girl that if she were disappointed in it no other love could be quite the same to her. But you seem to have judged more rightly than I even over that, which is more of a woman's question than a man's. I suppose it is because you have always had such sympathy with your girls. I confess that I should never have expected to come to Beatrix's wedding within a few months and find her so entirely cured of that other affair. Shewasvery deeply in love, I know, and in the nicest sweetest sort of way; but she seems still more deeply in love now."
"Well, you see she's found the right fellow," said Grafton. "He's worth what she gives him. The other fellow wasn't; but I don't think she'd really given him everything; she only thought she had."
"You're a wise man, George. Women have much more to give to those they love than they have any idea of themselves at first. But men don't usually know that. And only the best sort of men bring it out. B is a darling, but it would make a great deal of difference whom she married. I do think now that with Lassigny she would just have developed as a charming delightful woman, but rather of the butterfly order—even if everything had gone right with their married life. But I think Dick will make her. She will show very fine qualities by and bye. He will bring them out."
"I hope he will," said Grafton.
The Bishop, who had performed the ceremony, was standing in a little group with his wife and Prescottand Viola. "Well, my dear friend," he said, "you've provided one of the happiest weddings I've ever taken part in, and I think I may say one of the very sweetest and prettiest of brides."
"What I like about all your girls, Mr. Grafton," said the Bishop's wife, "is that there's not an ounce of nonsense in them anywhere. They show all their feelings, and they fortunately never have any feelings that they would want to hide."
"That's a very handsome tribute," said Grafton. "But I think it's deserved."
"I've never seen anybody look happier than the little bride," she went on. "If all the marriages you have solemnised, my dear, bid fair to turn out so satisfactorily as this one—!"
"Yes," said the Bishop. "Marriage is a blessed state where there's complete love and trust. I think one could say that neither of these two would be complete without it."
"Or without one another," said Viola. "Gerry, dear, I thought we were the most satisfactory couple you could find anywhere, but Dick and B have advantages over us. He is not so harum-scarum as you are, and she is much prettier and nicer than I am."
"Gentle fisher-maiden," sang Prescott. "But she's a sweet thing, and deserves all the happiness she can get. I think she's found the right man to give it her too. His Lordship and I did a very good thing when we spliced them up. I'm all for making everybody happy."
Jimmy Beckley had a word or two of wisdom to impart on the subject of the marriage. He would have liked to impart them to Beatrix herself, but found it impossible, as he had rather feared, to get her apart; so he asked Barbara to come for a stroll with him, and she consented, having a fair idea of what the invitation portended, and expecting to draw amusement from it.
"You know," said Jimmy, when they were out of earshot of the crowd, "a wedding of this sort is a jolly moving thing. I wouldn't say that to everybody, because the general idea is to keep grinning all the time, and advise the young couple to keep clear of squalls. But I believe you can see further into things than most people, Barbara, though I shouldn't have said it of you a year ago."
"I'm glad you've noticed the change in me," said Barbara, with suspicious humility. "Of course I was a child a year ago; now I'm a woman, and better company for people of intelligence."
"That's quite true," said Jimmy. "I can talk to you now about things I should never have thought of mentioning to you last year. I can tell you, Barbara, that this marriage of B's has made me see a good many things in a different light. When you see a girl like that—bright and taking and pretty—pledging herself to a man for life—and doing it before an old Bishop of course makes it all the more jolly—it makes you think that a lot of the business that's talked about love—well, the Johnnies who talk about it don't knowas much as they think. That's how it struck me in the church just now, 'specially when the old bird spouted that bit about for richer and poorer, and in sickness and in health and all that. I don't know whether you felt something of the same. I expect you did. You've got a heart; I know that, though everybody might not twig it."
"Thank you, Jimmy," said Barbara. "Yes, I felt much the same as you say you did. It made me think that there was no sense in wasting yourself over a lot of idle fancies. Much better wait till exactly the right man comes along, and give him everything."
"H'm! Well!" said Jimmy, evidently somewhat at a loss. "Butyouhaven't had much time for idle fancies."
"Oh, I don't know," said Barbara. "I wouldn't tell it to everybody, but I know it's safe with you. You understand these things. I— No, I can't after all. Please forget what I said, Jimmy. There is nobody; nobody at all; and if there were, you're the last person I should confess it to."
"My dear child," said Jimmy, "you've said what you have said, and I'm very glad you've said it to me. There's nothing to be ashamed of. I suppose what you mean is that you've taken a fancy to some fellow and don't like to acknowledge it because you think it mayn't be returned."
"Oh, I know it isn't," said Barbara.
"Well, I shouldn't be so sure of that if I were you," said Jimmy. "You're young, and you don't knowmen. You seethemtaking fancies to people, but perhaps after all there isn't much in it. This fellow may be thinking a great deal about you all the time; perhaps not liking to show it himself because you haven't given him any encouragement."
"Oh, no. I know he can't possibly care for me at all. Besides, it's all over now. Iwasrather weak, but I'm not any more."
"If this chap let you see that he was thinking about you, and was very glad to know that you were thinking about him in that way, I suppose it wouldn't be over, would it?"
"I think so, but I couldn't be certain till I got back."
"Got back! What do you mean? Got back where?"
"Why, to Paris. You see, I've had six weeks to get over it."
Jimmy stopped and looked at her sternly. "Do you mean to say, Barbara, that you've fallen in love with some ass of a fellow in Paris?" he asked.
"Oh, he wasn't an ass, Jimmy. He was a splendid-looking man. He was one of the Gardes Municipales who was on duty at the Opéra. I saw him three times. Before that it was one of the clergy at the English Church. Now I've begun I may as well tell you everything. Before that there was a driver of afiacrewho used to stand in the Place Saint Sulpice, but he was much too old—about sixty-five, I should think, and that didn't last long. Before that—oh, but I can't tell you any more. I'm glad I've made a clean breast ofit, though.Youunderstand it all, I know, and can make allowances."
"I can't make allowances for that sort of rotten business," said Jimmy stiffly. "You're the last girl I should have thought would have mucked about like that. If that's the way you behave yourself in Paris, I don't think you ought to be allowed to go back there."
"I don't suppose I should be allowed, if Dad knew. Of course, as I told you, it's all over now; but I don't know what will happen when I get back to Paris. I may see somebody else, and not be able to help myself. There's rather a handsome violin teacher who comes to teach one of the girls—but I mustn't give away other people's secrets, and she has left now. I shall be the only one to learn the violin next term."
"You don't play the violin."
"I asked Dad if I might, and he said I could."
"Barbara!" Jimmy stopped in the path again, with the evident intention of expressing himself with weight and fervour. But he had only got out the sentence. "You willnotlearn the violin next term," when Young George arrived on the scene.
"What's up?" he asked. "You look as if you were having a row."
"Jimmy objects to my learning the violin," said Barbara. "I'm sure I don't know why."
"You know very well why," said Jimmy. "Do you wish me to tell George the reason why I object?"
"Yes, if you've got one."
"She has taken a fancy to the violin teacher," said Jimmy. "She actually acknowledges it, and says—"
"Why shouldn't I acknowledge it?" interrupted Barbara. "She's a very clever teacher, and took the First Prize at the Conservatoire."
"You can't get out of it like that," said Jimmy hotly. "If there's a woman there's a man too. You said so. And what about the cab-driver, and the bobby, and the curate? It's a good deal too serious for me to keep it to myself, and I shall tell George everything you told me."
"Yes, you tell him all about it, dear," said Barbara. "I can't stay any longer. I must go to B. Good-bye, little man."
The time came for Beatrix to go off. A great crowd had collected in the hall, through which she made her way laughing, and round the carriage that was to take her to the station. Before her husband handed her into it she threw her arm round her father's neck. "Good-bye, my precious old Daddy," she said. "I'll write to you the very first thing."
It was a wild wet day in late October. A terrific gale had swept over the country the night before, and strewn the coasts of England with wreckage. It had done great damage at Abington, and when Caroline looked out of her bedroom window in the morning she saw evidence of it in great trees lying prone here and there in the park, and the drift of leaves and branches scattered everywhere. The wind was still raging, though it had abated some of its fury, and even as she looked she saw a high elm that had towered above the beeches with which the slopes of the park were mostly planted come crashing to the earth.
After breakfast she went out to see what damage had been done. The wind was blowing over the house to the front, and when she got out of its shelter she was seized as if in the grip of something tangible, and held for a moment struggling. She laughed and went on, enjoying it, but had to hold on to her hat to prevent its being wrenched off her head; and her thick tweed skirt was blown all about her. In her young strength and resiliency she seemed as much at home in this wild weather as in days of blue sky and soft airs. She was no fair-weather girl, and the rain which drove against her fretted her as little as the wind.
As she made her way across the park she saw the figure of a man making his way towards the spot where the most havoc had been done, and recognised it for that of Maurice Bradby. He saw her and came towards her. When they met they laughed at one another. "Isn't it glorious?" she said. "I thought you'd be out to enjoy it."
Her face was wet with the rain. Her hair, where it showed under her close-fitting felt hat, was pearled with it. She had never looked more lovely, to him, than then as she smiled up to him. His rugged, rather unkempt strength also showed to advantage in this battle of the elements. He had gained the country look, which is not affected by chances of weather, but shows a spirit attuneable to expressions of all nature's moods.
"I've come out to see what damage has been done," he said; and they went on together.
In the shelter of the trees progression was easier, but the gale still roared and shrieked above them, and twigs and small branches were being torn off and falling all about. Once a branch of considerable size cracked and fell within a few yards of them, and Bradby looked anxiously at her, and suggested that it would be safer in the open. But he was keen on the work he had come out for, and she was interested in it too. So they went on.
He was noting the trees that had fallen and measuring them with his eye for their timber. He seemed to her to be doing it with a wonderful sureness andcompetence, as he did everything in connection with his work, and she tested herself as to her own understanding of the matter in hand, and received congratulations from him on her eye for timber. This pleased her. It was more interesting, doing things, than just walking and talking, and to do them with him was to do them with some one who could teach her a lot of what she liked knowing about. And she liked helping him, too. He had a master mind in all that had to do with the commodities of nature; she had long since come to recognise that. In all outward aspects her inferior, here he was on a plane which put her at his feet, and he exercised his knowledge with a quiet assurance that made his mastery evident. It was worth while to work with him; and to gain his commendation brought a thrill.
They went to where the great elm had fallen. It was the tallest of a group of three standing among the beeches on the highest point to be seen from the Abbey. It had been a magnificent tree, but had passed its age of healthy growth, and the amount of sound timber to be reckoned with was difficult to gauge. They interested themselves deeply in it, while the gale, which seemed to have increased in violence again, raged all about them.
They were standing by the uprooted hole, wondering at the exposed roots, which seemed to have so little to anchor such a giant to the earth, when suddenly Bradby seized Caroline and threw her violently into the hollow from which the tree had been uprooted.She fell and lay in a puddle of water, and was instantly overwhelmed by the branches and twigs of a great bough, some of which whipped her in the face, drawing blood, and one more solid hit her heavily on the arm and drove it into her side.
When she had recovered a little from the fright and shock she wriggled herself free from it. If it had been set ever so little more at an angle it must have crushed her body, for the bough that had been torn from one of the elms still standing was of great size and weight, and this was one of its biggest branches.
She raised herself with difficulty through the mass that was hemming her in, and called to Bradby. But there was no answer; only the wind and the driving rain.
With her heart in her mouth she clambered out of the hollow and then saw him lying half in and half out of it, with his face white and dead, and his body underneath the heavy branch that had struck her down.
She found herself struggling with all her might to lift the weight from him, and then came suddenly to herself and ran as fast as she could down the hill to get help. Her face was bruised and bleeding, and her arm hung by her side useless, though she knew that it was not broken. She was hurt, too, where it had been pressed into her body, and every breath she drew was a sharp twinge. But she ran the whole way to the house, and managed to give clear and quick instructions to the men she found in the stables. She wouldhave gone up with them, but Miss Waterhouse, who had seen her running across the park, came out and insisted upon her coming in. When she got indoors she collapsed, for she was rather badly hurt.
Bradby was hurt very seriously. He had seen the bough crack and begin to fall, directly towards where they were standing. Caroline was standing with her back towards it. He might have got out of the way himself, but there would have been no time to warn her, or even drag her out of danger. To throw her into the hollow was the only chance, and the bough caught him before he could jump in after her. The fallen trunk fortunately took the weight of the great bough, which if it had fallen to the ground must have killed them both. But the branch, an elbow of which had crushed Caroline, had struck Bradby down. It had broken both his thighs, and he had ribs broken besides, and internal injury which made his life hang in the balance for as long as Caroline took to recover from her lesser hurt.
He was said to be just out of danger when she was well enough to leave her room, and in two days, when she had practically recovered and could go out again, he was said to be going to get quite well, though he would have to lie up for many weeks yet.
He had been moved down to the Abbey, and was installed there with a couple of nurses, one of whom was able to leave him in a week. When Caroline first saw him he had altered so as to give her a shock of dismay. He was thin and gaunt and pale, but hisgreat dark eyes stood out of his face in such a way as to bring out its essential refinement. The immaturity of his features seemed to have been wiped out; he was almost handsome, with his shock of dark hair spread over his pillow, and his long, pale, thin face with the fine eyes.
His mother was with him—a gentle sweet-faced woman, with the same beautiful eyes, but no other resemblance to this ugly duckling of a son. He must have inherited his strength and ruggedness from his father, of whom a photograph stood on his mantelpiece. There were photographs of his brothers and sisters too—good-looking men and girls, more like their mother than he was. His father had come when he was at his worst, but had gone back to his parish, and Caroline had not seen him.
Caroline knew he had saved her life, but found herself unable to say so, or to thank him. And she knew that he didn't want her to. They said very little at her first visit, but it was plain what healing it brought him.
She told Mrs. Bradby what he had done. "It was his quickness that saved me," she said, "and not thinking about himself. Very few people would have been able to think of what to do, and do it, in that fraction of time. The instinctmusthave been to get out of the way."
His mother must have known his secret. An instinct stronger than that of self-preservation had been at work, and Caroline owed her life to it, and he his injuries.
She looked rather sadly at the beautiful girl sitting with her. They were in the Long Gallery, in which all the circumstances of this kindly hospitable family were expressed. She had been taken in just as if she belonged to all the wealth and ease, and the wide relationships, herself, and her son was being treated as if he were of it too. But his lot, and hers, were cast in very different places from that of the people who inhabited rooms of this sort, and had the relationships indicated by the photographs that were set about. They were of two different worlds—the world of work and the world of wealth, which never entirely coalesce, though contact is formed here and there between them.
She looked at Caroline and saw her more in the light of the state of life to which she belonged than in that of her essential character. It was the first time that they had met, and though she was strongly attracted to her she had not yet gauged her fine true spirit. It was natural that she should be affected by her outward appearance, which betokened her birth and her station, and seemed to put her altogether out of reach of a young man who had enjoyed none of the advantages of wealth, and had none of the elasticity which enables some to climb up from rungs of the social ladder a good deal lower than that from which he had started.
But before she left Abington, which she did two days after she first saw Caroline, she came to look at her son with new eyes, and it was Caroline who opened them for her.
It is not every mother who loves her ugly duckling better than the handsome ones. Mrs. Bradby took more pride in her other sons than in Maurice, who, until he had made his new start at Abington, had been looked on in his home as something of a failure. Even now, though his new start had seemed to promise success, neither his father nor mother had taken it as anything more than a fortunate finding of the right path for him. There was indeed no more to be seen in it than that. Land Agency is hardly a career in itself. At the best he would live the life that suited him, and gain in time a situation which would enable him to marry. He could never expect more than a modest income and a modest home. He would bring satisfaction to his parents if he worked up to that, but not pride, as their other sons were in the way of doing.
But this beautiful, sweet, clever girl saw a great deal beneath the not very attractive exterior. He might do nothing in the world that would be counted as success. He was hardly in the way of doing anything, and yet she spoke of what he was doing as if it went much deeper than the work in which he was spending his days, and by which he was about to earn his living. He was in his right place in the world, and in tune with big things. This was more than to make the sort of success that his brothers might make in their several careers. If his mother did not think it was more, she at least saw that Maurice was not to be judged by the standards applied to them,and her heart went out to the girl who had found more in him than she had.
It may be supposed that she was on the alert for any sign that Caroline was attracted towards her son in the way that she had divined he was towards her. She was not sure, at the end of her visit that she wasn't; but she was sure that if she was she didn't know it yet, or she would not have spoken of him with that unfettered admiration for his fine qualities. It was natural that she should show warmth of feeling towards him, when he was lying battered and broken by having saved her from the same or from worse injury; but that warmth also was expressed frankly and without reserve. His mother thought, rather sadly, that if Caroline had thought of him as of a young man with whom it was possible to fall in love, she wouldn't have praised him so freely. She was what her surroundings had made her; he was something quite different. She would accept the difference as putting a barrier between them, and from behind that barrier she could give him her liking and admiration and understanding.
So it seemed to Mrs. Bradby, as she drove away from the Abbey, with gratitude for all that she had received there warm in her heart. She had come to see in Caroline, as Caroline saw in Maurice, something deeper than what was shown on the surface, something deeper even than the kindness and goodness that was there for all to see. If Maurice had been older, more sure of himself, it seemed to her in hernew view of him that he might have aspired to this girl, in spite of the differences between them. She would not think that they would matter; she was too fine to base herself upon the accidents of her upbringing. She would take a man for what he was, not for his outward seeming. But Maurice was still immature; he would not himself think that he had enough to offer a girl such as Caroline, nor be able to impress her to step out of the conventions that hemmed her round.
It was just as well. Nothing but trouble, it seemed to her, could come from a love declared and returned. Maurice had done so well that he was to be paid as Sub-Agent to the Abington property from the beginning of the year. Mr. Grafton, she knew, had arranged that, who was always so kind. But his kindness could hardly be expected to stand the test of giving his daughter to a young man who would be making barely enough money to keep himself, and was quite outside the circle in which marriages were formed for her and her like. It was, perhaps, something of a comfort to be convinced that Maurice, whatever he might feel towards Caroline, would be too diffident to bring on that complication, and that she would not lend herself to it.
But she had reckoned without the impulsions of youth, of dependence upon one side and of gratitude and pity on the other.
Maurice had been moved on to a sofa by the open window, and Caroline was sitting by his side talkingto him, as she had sat and talked for days past. By and bye—she never afterwards remembered quite how—her hand was lying in his, and they were looking into one another's eyes, with a meaning infinitely tender and trustful. There was nobody in the world but their two selves, and they both knew it, without any necessity for words. Caroline's time had come. She had not known it until that moment, but she knew it now without the shadow of a doubt, and accepted it with complete surrender.
Grafton had gone up to London on Monday morning, and would not be back until Friday evening. Caroline wrote to him on Tuesday morning. Maurice also wrote to him. There was no reply to either of the letters. Caroline had told him that she should tell no one else until she heard from him, or saw him.
She motored to the station to meet him. Her heart was heavy, but beneath her dread of what was coming was a deep calm and assurance. There were to have been guests at the Abbey over the week-end, but a telegram had been received to say that they had been put off. That was all that she had heard from her father, though when he had been away for the whole working week he had always written to her at least once.
He gave her his usual greeting when he got out of the train—"Well, my darling!" and kissed her. The kiss was, if anything, warmer than usual, and she felt an immense lift of love and gratitude towards him. If he had brought himself to accept it! She had hardly dared to hope for that.
He had brought some cases down, and she stood with her arm in his while he gave instructions about them. Then they got into the car and drove off.
"I didn't write, darling," he said immediately, "becauseit wanted a lot of thinking about, and some getting used to. It was quite a surprise to me. You say it was to you, too. Are you quite sure about it?"
"Yes, Dad, quite sure," she said softly, her arm still in his.
"Well, I knew you must be. I came to see that. Whatever I thought about it myself, it was for you to decide, and you weren't likely to have made a mistake, or to have gone into it lightly. I trust you absolutely, darling. I trust you in some things more than I do myself. If it's what you want, you must be right to want it. You'll have no trouble with me."
She broke down and cried on his shoulder. The strain on her had been greater than she had known, and its entire removal unbalanced her for the moment. Her tears did not last long. "You've made me so happy," she said. "I don't know why I'm crying. I ought to be laughing."
"Dearest child!" he said tenderly. "You've been fearing that I should make a fuss, eh? Well, there's going to be a bit of a fuss, you know, Aunt Katharine and Aunt Mary, and all the rest of them. They won't understand it all."
"Do you understand it all, Dad?" she asked. "Is that why you're so sweet about it?"
"Perhaps I don't understand it all," he said, "though I've taken a lot of trouble about it. You won't expect me to shirk the difficulties. You'll have to answer up, won't you?Theywon't like it, andthey'll say so. It will be for your sake they'll make objections, and think they are right in doing it. You'll have to remember that. But they're not—either of them—what you might call worldly, at heart. If you're right you'll be able to make them see it."
"I shan't mind anything if you're on my side, darling Dad. I hoped you would be when I had seen you, but I didn't think you'd bring me such comfort as you have, just at first. It makes me love you more than ever, because you understand the best things in me."
There was a pause before he said: "Tell me about it, darling. We needn't talk about what the world will see, and criticise. You must have faced that. And—"
"Perhaps it would be better," she said, "if I tell you how I have faced it, so as to get it out of the way, between you and me, Dad. We have talked about marriage together, and I know what your views are. Mine were much the same, before I knew I loved Maurice. I suppose that was why I didn't know that I did love him. Until it came to me, I shouldn't have thought of marrying anybody that Aunt Katharine and Aunt Mary wouldn't think it suitable that I should marry—somebody with an established position, who had lived in the world that they belong to. I think even if I had found myself to have fallen in love—"
She hesitated. "Ah, that's the important thing," he said, and she knew that he understood her, and went on, with a pressure on the arm she was holding. "Yes,even if I had fallen in love—unless there was something deeper—I shouldn't have thought it right, and should have tried to get over it."
He kissed her, and laughed. "I think I'm rather a clever fellow," he said. "I've had to work it out all by myself, and I've worked it out right. You see, I know you, my Cara. I don't know him yet, though. So it wasn't easy."
She pressed closer to him. "It's lovely to feel one is so much trusted," she said. "But you were right to trust me, darling. No, I know it couldn't have been easy. I've had to do some thinking myself, so as to see how you'd take it. I knew you'd be dear and kind, but I couldn't expect you to see Maurice as I see him, now that I love him.Hethinks, you know, that I'm much above him. I'm not, in anything that matters. But in all the things that the world looks at—. That's what we're up against, isn't it, Dad?"
"We'll be up against it together, darling, and if I'm with you the others won't matter much. But it's true, you know, that I don't see him as you do, yet. You've got to help me."
"I know. Well, darling, you've seen I have changed since we came to live here. When we had that ride, to breakfast with Mollie, we talked about it. You thought I was cutting myself off from something that was worth having. I wasn't quite sure that I wasn't, and I enquired into myself afterwards."
"What did you discover? It's very important. Youwillcut yourself off."
"I discovered that I really didn't want any of it; not to make it matter. My happiness is in the quietest things I do, not in the other things. Even our big beautiful house, and the garden, and the way we live—that counted for a lot when we first came to live in the country. But it's not what counts most now. It's the country itself—nature, I suppose. I'm at home with it. There's something in me that responds. Well, Maurice is like that too; even more than I am, because his life has been simpler than mine. He is really big, Dad; big and simple and direct. There's been nothing to complicate his purpose. I've felt it about him all along. Now I love him, I know what it is that has brought me to him. I can look up to him, and I do."
They went up together to Maurice's room. He was on the sofa, propped up now against cushions, and soon to be ready to be wheeled about.
"Well, my boy!" said Grafton, as he shook hands with him.
"Dad is on our side, Maurice," said Caroline.
A look of intense happiness came into his face, and tears sprang to his eyes; for he was still weak, and the relief brought to him was overpowering.
Grafton sat down by the sofa. "She has told me all about it," he said. "If it's what she wants, it's what I want for her."
As he spoke he searched the young man's face, to see, if he could, what there was in him that he hadn't seen already, but she had seen to such surprisingeffect. He caught a glimpse of it. It was a strong face. The diffidence that had been perhaps the chief note of this young man's behaviour towards them all had been based upon his youth and inexperience. They had represented to him a side of life in which he had not been, and probably never would be, at home. But it was the conventional side of life. In the big, basic things he would not show diffidence. And he would grow into his man's good strength.
He had grown already. He looked the older man straight in the face as he said: "I've done nothing to deserve her yet. But if you'll give her to me I will."
Worthing came to dine that evening. Grafton was to tell him about it when they were alone together after dinner. Miss Waterhouse, only, had been told so far. She had shown no surprise, but had said very little. Grafton was not sure whether she approved or not, but knew that she would express herself to him by and bye, in her quiet way that was full of wisdom.
Worthing had been up to see Maurice before dinner. He was rather quieter than usual until he and his host were left alone together. When Caroline and Miss Waterhouse had gone out of the room, he said at once: "Grafton, I've got to get something off my chest, and I may as well do it at once. I think the sooner young Bradby is moved out of here the better."
Grafton laughed, rather ruefully. "You should have said that a fortnight ago," he said. "It's too late now, James."
Worthing stared at him open-mouthed. "You don't mean to say—!"
"They've fallen in love with one another. She's as deep in it as he is."
Worthing struggled with his consternation. "But—but—but—" was all he could say, and each 'but' marked a question to which he wanted an answer.
"What do you see in the boy, James?" asked Grafton. "He's been living with you for over a year now. You must know him as well as anybody."
Worthing found his voice. "What do I see in him?" he said. "I don't see a husband for Caroline in him. I call it an infernal piece of impudence. Surely you're not going to allow it! Why, he's hardly begun his work yet. He couldn't expect to marry anybody, for years to come. And a girl like Caroline! Good Lord! What's the world coming to?"
He seemed greatly disturbed. "I feel as if I was to blame, in bringing him here," he said. "But I never thought—"
"Well, it's natural that you should take that view, at first. I took it myself when I first had their letters. It was about the biggest startler I've ever had. But you know Caroline, James. She loves him. If you can find the answer to the riddle why she loves him, for yourself—!"
"That's not very difficult. He saved her life, and nearly lost his own in doing it. She's been looking after him. Women are like that, and young girlsespecially. You don't have to know much about them to see that; there are thousands of instances."
"That's what it will look like to everybody, I know. But it wouldn't be enough for Caroline."
"Caroline's one of the best girls that ever stepped. All your girls are; they're quite out of the common. But human nature works in them just the same as in anybody else. Why, you've seen it yourself, in Beatrix. She fell in love with a wrong 'un. You stopped that; and now she's got the right man. Supposingshe'dmarried the first fellow she fell in love with!"
"You say I stopped it. I've asked myself how much I had to do with stopping it. I got it put off. If he hadn't—"