"Well, then, you ought to get this put off—at least. Bradby is a good enough fellow in his own class, but his class isn't Caroline's. That's plain enough! I can't understand your thinking about it all. There isn't a soul in the world who wouldn't think you were justified in stopping it—taking her away, or something; or telling me to clear him out. I'd do it like a shot."
"It wouldn't make any difference. I've come to see that. I love my little B, but she isn't Caroline.Shemight have fallen in love—she actually did—with a man who wasn't fit for her to marry. Caroline never would."
"Beatrix would never have fallen in love with Bradby."
"I know she wouldn't. She wouldn't have seen belowthe surface. Caroline does, and she finds something there that I confess I haven't been able to see hitherto. That's why I asked you at the beginning what you saw in him. Get rid of all the side issues. He's young; he isn't in a position to marry; he doesn't belong to our sort of people. What is he beneath all that? Or, if you like, what is he going to grow into?"
"He's A1 at his work. I've never denied that. He'll get a good job by and bye, and be worth it; but not for a good many years yet."
"Thatisone of the side issues. Caroline wouldn't love him because he was likely to get a good job. What is he in himself? Come now, James, you're a man of some perception, and he has lived with you for over a year."
"What is he in himself?" Worthing frowned, with the effort to direct his thoughts into the channels required of them. "You want me to give you excuses for accepting him," he said.
"Not excuses; reasons. I'll tell you how Caroline sees him. Her words struck me. She said he was big and simple and direct."
This was rather beyond Worthing. "He's a good fellow," he said. "He's not always thinking about himself; a nice fellow to live with. Whatever he does he does as well as he can do it. Is that what she means by being direct? He's simple enough, if that's a good quality. I'm not sure that it is. Fellows of our age can say we've hit upon the right sort of life and don'twant anything beyond it, but I think a young fellow ought to have some ambition. I've never seen any in him. I doubt if he'd ever move to get himself on; he'd just do his work wherever he was. I don't know what she means by his being big. He's in his right place on the land."
"That's what she does mean, I think. He's so much in his right place, where most people aren't quite. And the land is big. He's in tune with it. I think that's how she expressed it. It's a bit beyond anything I could have got hold of myself, but it isn't beyond me to take in her view, believing in her as I do. She's big herself, you know, James. And she's simple and direct too. She has found herself, living here in the country. Eighteen months ago she wouldn't have fallen in love with Bradby, any more than B would. She's been getting away from the sort of life she was brought up to all the time. I've known that."
"But do you want that? It means she's getting away from you. I should have thought that was the last thing you'd have wanted."
"Damn it, man! Can't you see into things a bit? How much do you think I should be likely to want a marriage of this sort for a daughter of mine, if it were left to me? I was absolutely bowled over by it. I'll say that, just once to you, and get it out of the way. I'll say it to nobody else, and I won't let Caroline know it if I can possibly help it. Supposing I stood out! What should I stand out on? On everything that she sees as plainly as I do, but rejects for herself. Andwhat she sees and accepts as all important for her, and for the best part of her, she'd find me incapable of accepting. What could part us more than that? She's made up her mind, and she's sure she's right. She won't change; it would be a come down for her to take the view of it all that strikes you and me. I'm what I am, and what my life has made me. I can't help this being a grievous disappointment to me. I want all sorts of things for her that I've a right to want for my daughter. But if she doesn't want them—if she doesn't think they're the best things—!"
"She's bound to miss all she's been brought up to."
"If I thought she would I might stick out, for her sake. It wouldn't bringmemuch consolation to stick out. I should only be dividing myself from her, as I did for a time from B. I don't want that again. I've learnt something. I stuck out against that fellow because I felt right through me that he wasn't right in himself, for B. If I stood out against Bradby, it would be because he wasn't a match for Caroline in money and position and all that sort of thing. I'm not going to base myself on all that, and show myself incapable of sharing her bigger ideals. And what would be the good? It would hurt her damnably to know that I couldn't stand beside her on that plane; but she'd never come down to mine."
Worthing showed himself impressed. "If you think of her like that!" he said.
"Well, isn't it the right way to think about her? There are some people in the world whom you cantrust never to go wrong. She's one of them. Her mother was another. If her mother had been alive, she'd have backed her up. I've tried my best to stand for what she would have done towards our children, but a man can only make a clumsy job of that at his best. Still, where I see it, I'm going to take her line rather than my own. I'd have trusted her; and I trust Caroline."
Worthing was silent for a time. Then he said: "Well, I hope you're right about it. I can't say it looks anything but odd to me. I don't think you can care about it much yourself, either. You must have had a difficult time bringing yourself to your present way of thinking. I can see that. It does you a lot of credit."
Grafton sat silent too, looking down. Presently he said, as if summing it all up: "I trust Caroline. If I don't see it as she does, it's because my ideas aren't likely to be as right as hers. But for my own sake, and hers too, I shall try to see it as she does. And I shall stand between her and her relations. I shan't say as much to any of them as I have to you. We'd better go up to them, I think. Don't let him see what you think about it, more than you can help. Make the best of him."
Grafton had a talk with Maurice alone the next morning. He had never found it easy to talk to him, except where it was a question of the things he knew about. He had as little of the art of general conversation as a young man of his age very well could have,and his diffidence had made him even rather tiresome as a companion.
But there was none in the way he spoke now. He had gained Caroline's love, which made him feel himself a king among men, though in desert still far beneath her. He was full of gratitude for the gift of her love, and he was grateful too to her father for his acceptance of him as her lover.
"I know what a lot there is against me," he said quietly, "that you are bound to take into account. But although she's so much above me in every way, we love the same things, and I can give her something that another man might not. I've found out that I can make her happy. That's the most wonderful discovery I've ever made. I hope you'll trust me to do it."
"My dear boy," Grafton said, "I've got to trust you. She does. It's all I want of you, that you should make her happy, all her life. I've made her happy up till now. But a father can't complete his daughter's life, however much he loves her. Only a husband can do that. She believes you're the one man in the world who can give her all she wants, and because she believes it, I'm bound to believe it too. Tell me the course of life you have in your mind for yourselves. I know you've talked it over together, but I told her I'd rather have it from you. I want to get into complete sympathy with you as well as with her."
"I know it must be difficult for you, Mr. Grafton," the boy said. "We are both very grateful to you forthe way you have treated me. I didn't expect you'd be so kind about it. She said you would be, but I think I can see more clearly than she does what a difference there is between us. In the way you'd look at it, I think I see it just as clearly as you do."
"Well, I'm glad you've said that, Maurice. I suppose a father is apt to think about the material side of marriage for his daughters more than the other. I think he's right to do it, because with the experience he has reached he knows well enough that the material side of a marriage is a lot more important than two young people who have fallen in love with one another are likely to see for themselves. It mustn't be left out of account with you two. That's why I want to know what your ideas are—as to the way you've planned it out for yourselves."
"We look at it like this," he answered at once. "A very simple life, in the country, will give both of us what we most want. It's easy enough for me, because it's more than I've ever had. Even the way I live with Mr. Worthing, and coming here, and going to other houses like this, is more than I've had. I should expect to be able to get to that by what I can earn, by and bye, but of course it's much less than Caroline has been used to. I've thought about it a great deal, and tried to take into account everything that she would be losing by marrying me—to see whether she ought not to lose any of it."
"Well, what do you think she will be losing?"
"The biggest thing, which would trouble me greatlyif I thought she would lose it because of me, would be the way you and her own family would look upon her. If it wouldn't make any difference—"
"Well, it won't make any difference to me. I've assured you of that already."
"I'm rather afraid of how Beatrix will take it."
"Beatrix won't like it, Maurice. We'd better look it all in the face. I don't know how her life will turn out, but it will never be so free of the world as Caroline's will. She isn't built on the same lines, and they won't come together on the deepest things in Caroline's life. She won't understand them. But they love one another, and they'll go on loving one another."
"Yes, I think so. It was you I thought most about. Then her other relations, and all the people she has lived among, and I haven't. She will be cut off from them. Not entirely, where they are real friends; but she will no longer be living their life, and I'm not fitted to live it. She won't be able to see so much even of those who would want her, and she would like to see. She won't be able to pay many visits, or go much to London. She will miss all the clever interesting people she has constantly met, and being in the world, and part of it, as she has been."
Grafton laughed. "She'll have told you that she has already reconciled herself to not living much in the world," he said.
"Yes, she has. But I had to ask myself for her whether she wouldn't miss it more than she thinks. She has a great deal of it still—here. She wouldn'thave nearly so much. And of course all that it means living in a house like this she would lose,—what she has grown used to, and doesn't think about, because she has always had it. I can see how different her life would be."
"I think you've faced it all pretty straight, Maurice, except that she'll lose consideration in the world. How does that strike you?"
He hesitated a moment. "I don't think it matters," he said.
"Perhaps it doesn't. But why don't you think it matters?"
"Because nothing that she will be if she marries me will be less than what she has been. Everybody whose opinion she would value would know that."
"Well, I think you've got that right too. And as for all the rest—there's a certain way of living that one wouldn't like to see one's daughter fall below; but it doesn't depend upon big houses, or a lot of money. There's no reason why she shouldn't have it. I do think myself, that with a girl like Caroline, so suited to take her place in the best sort of society that the world has to offer, it's a pity she shouldn't have it. But we've had that out together and she says she doesn't want it. She wants something else, which she thinks is better. I wish she could have had both; but if not, she's made her choice, with her eyes open, and I'm not going to say that I think she's wrong. She won't be losing everything that she has been brought up to either. What are your ideas about getting married?"
"We haven't talked about it much yet. It's for the future, when we can see ourselves settled somewhere."
Grafton sat thinking for some time. Then he got up from his chair. "Well, I expect you'll want to see Caroline now," he said. "I must go down and write some letters."
When Grafton left Maurice's room he went to the Long Gallery, where Caroline was sitting with Miss Waterhouse. When Caroline went away he stayed there. Miss Waterhouse had not yet expressed herself to him.
"Well, Dragon, what do you think of it all?" he asked her.
"I think you have been very wise, and very kind," she said.
"It had to be—eh?"
"Yes, I think it had to be, under the circumstances."
"What do you mean by the circumstances?"
"When two young people are brought together in the way they have been, I think love is likely to come of it."
Her answer made him vaguely uneasy. "That's what the world will say," he said. "If it were only that, it wouldn't be very satisfactory, would it? Don't you see a deeper suitability in it than there is on the surface? It's what I have to look for, to make it bearable."
"I think there is what you call a deeper suitability. I think Caroline will be happy in her marriage, when the time comes for it."
"You're not very enthusiastic, Dragon. Isshesatisfied with your view of it?"
"I was the only person who knew anything until you came home. I sympathised with her. I saw how deep her love was. But I couldn't be enthusiastic until I knew how you would take it. I couldn't have said that you would have been wrong in asking at least for a term of probation, as you did in Beatrix's case."
"But I didn't ask for it—because I trusted Caroline to have faced all the objections she would know I should feel, and just exactlynotto have allowed herself to fall in love owing to what you call the circumstances. She would know what she wanted, I said to myself. And she wouldn't change, whatever I did or said. It wouldn't have come to an end of itself, as Beatrix's affair did. I hope you're not going to say that my reasoning was wrong. It hasn't been very easy to sink all my own ideas—of fitness—of what one would expect in marriage for a girl like Caroline."
"I think you've been entirely right; more right than if you'd stood out, or even questioned it. It would have made no difference, and you'd have had to give way in the end. Nothing you could have done or said would have so added to dear Caroline's happiness as what you have said and done. She was dreading more than anything a separation in spirit from you. I know that, though she said little about it. Now that fear is removed she is blissfully happy. Nothing that anybody else says will matter to her at all."
"And yet you don't seem to think I reached my conclusions in the right way."
"What I think is that she couldn't have reasoned it out in the way you thought she had. A woman doesn't reason like that—or at least she doesn't. It was just her heart that guided her."
"But she did reason. She told me that if he hadn't been what she has found out for herself that he is, and she'd been inclined to fall in love with him—just in the way you say she has, with gratitude, and pity, working in her—I suppose that's what you mean—she'd have resisted it."
"I think she couldn't have fallen in love with him, unless he'd shown himself to her as he has. There wouldn't be anything, forher, to fall in love with. It was her heart prompted her all the time. But of course she has tried hard to see it all in the light that you have taught her to follow. She would want to satisfy you that she hadn't given her love lightly. She wouldn't have wanted to satisfy herself. She would have known that she was right."
"Do you think she's right, Dragon?"
"Yes, I do."
"And you're not disappointed that this has come about?"
"Not for her sake. I am for yours. You would have expected her to shine in the world you belong to, and that she has belonged to. You must suffer somewhat in your just pride in her. But it's a farbigger thing to be able to sink that, and to want only her happiness, and to trust her to know where it lies. You'll certainly have your reward, though it may take some time to get over the disappointment. She'll love and trust you, as she couldn't have done if you had stood out ever so little."
"Well, you're very comforting, Dragon. Stimulating too. I told Worthing something of what I'd gone through about it, last night, and said that I shouldn't say as much to anybody else. But you're different. I shall have to stick up to Katharine Handsworth and Mary Grafton, and all the rest of them, when my own feeling will be much the same as theirs. I want something to support me."
"Yes. But I think it will all die down sooner than you think. All women are at heart sympathetic with a love match, you know. And they love Caroline. They won't want to makeherfeel that she is lowering herself."
"What about B?"
"Caroline has written to her, and to Barbara and Bunting. Whatever B has to say will be said to you, not to Caroline."
"B has been more critical of Maurice than anybody, you know."
"She will want that forgotten."
He was silent for a time, and then asked: "What are Caroline's ideas about getting married? She hasn't said anything to me about that yet."
"She has said very little to me. Having her engagementjust on the right footing has been enough for her."
"Has she said anything at all?"
"She would expect to wait, I think, until he got some sort of place; then she would not mind in how small a way they began."
"Well, there's no reason why they should begin in such a very small way. If I accept Maurice as the right husband for her, I should naturally do for her what I did for B."
He had settled ten thousand pounds on Beatrix. Miss Waterhouse knew this. So did Caroline.
"They could marry at any time on that," she said. "And he will be earning something in a few months. Do you want them to marry soon?"
"Well now, I'll make a clean breast of it to you, my dear Dragon. As long as they are not married, I shan't be able to prevent myself having a sort of hope that they won't be, after all."
She smiled. "You will have more pleasure of her now," she said, "when she is settled in her new life."
"That's what I've told myself. She will be very careful, I know, to let it make as little difference between her and me as possible. But it can't be quite the same as it has been. She has given her love to him, and I must be second where I've been first. But when she's once married he'll have his place and I shall have mine. We shan't clash in any way. I'm happier about B now than I was for the month or two before she was married."
It was the first time he had alluded to Beatrix's attitude towards him at that time.
"I think B was selfish," she said at once. "Caroline won't be like that. Her love is as deep as B's—deeper, for she has a deeper nature—but it will not carry her away in the same way. She will never hurt others who love her."
"I should like to see her happily married, you know. She'll be more than she's ever been. It will complete her. She's one of therightpeople, Dragon. The deeper you go down, the more you find."
"Yes, she's like that, the dear child. And she has gained greatly in character since we came to live here."
"You've seen that, have you?"
"Oh, yes. It's the good simplicity in her."
"That's what she says she sees in him; it's where they come together. Well, he'll have his regular job here, next year. It won't be much, but with what I shall give her they could begin. They could have Stone Cottage. Do you think Caroline has thought of that at all?"
"She hasn't said anything about it. But it would be just the right beginning for them; and it would be delightful for us to have her so near."
"We should have to think of it as havingthemso near, shouldn't we? It would mean a lot to me, and to you too, and the children, to have her here; but—. Well, I've said nothing about it to her or to him yet. They may have some idea that they ought to wait till he can do it all, or most of it, for her. I don't want toclaim more than is my right in her, Dragon. I've had a bit of a lesson about that with B, you know."
"I think he would have no right to object to her doing more to support their home than he can at first. It is just where the difference, that you can't get over, comes in. Caroline ought not to be kept waiting because he is not the sort of young man she would have been expected to marry. What you would give her would help in any case, as it helps with Beatrix. It is only that in this case it would help much more. It would be just one of the many things she would bring him that he is very fortunate to get with her. It would be a test of the large simplicity she sees in him if he took it gratefully, and without question."
He laughed at her. "Why, Dragon," he said. "I believe, after all, you take Worthing's view of it—that it's infernal impudence of him to expect to get Caroline at all."
She smiled in return. "I have every hope that he will prove worthy of her," was all the answer she made to this charge.
Grafton made his offer to Caroline, and gained all he could have wanted in return from her glowing grateful expression of happiness. "Darling old Daddy, youaregood to us," she said. "I do want to begin soon, but I didn't know whether it would be possible. Stone Cottage will be just perfect for us; we shall be near you, which will be lovely. I must go and tell Maurice at once."
Maurice thanked Grafton for this extra gift in away that pleased him. "You've given me Caroline," he said, "and now you've given us both this. I have more to thank you for, Mr. Grafton, than I can ever say."
His gratitude showed itself continually in his attitude towards the older man. Grafton knew that affection and admiration were working in his mind towards him, and he had only to stretch out his hand and take it, if he wanted it. The workings of his own mind were contradictory. Outwardly, and with strong restraint over himself, he had done the utmost that could have been expected of him. He had sunk all his grudges, and hidden all his disappointment. But he knew that still more had to be done if he were to gain the contentment in Caroline's marriage that for her sake he was simulating. It could only be done by receiving Maurice as a son, and if he could not do that for Maurice's own sake as well as for Caroline's, she would find it out sooner or later, and her happiness would be dimmed. And her love for himself would have received a hurt.
He set himself to talk to Maurice, to find out what was in him, to make contact. He found all the boy's simple philosophy of life good and straight and true, and under the impulse of his great happiness and gratitude he found expression for it. His whole being was set towards Caroline. His ambitions were all towards fitting himself to be her worthy companion in life, and to bringing her the fruit of his gifts. These could never be to any considerable extent those to beexchanged for money, and his thoughts did not run on the lines of a successful career. He would be worth a good position in the limited field to which he would devote his energies, and he took it for granted that it would come to him by and bye. For himself he looked upon it only as giving him further scope for the work for which he was fitting himself. There was never any hint of increased opportunities for his own pleasure in the future. He would have the full fruition of his own desires from the first, and he would owe it to Caroline and in a secondary degree to Grafton. It was she whom he would work and live for. There was a more single-minded devotion in his attitude towards her than in Dick's towards Beatrix. All Dick's life and work would be sweetened by Beatrix's love, but they would be pursued, as the life and work of most men are pursued, for their own ends. Caroline would be the end and aim of Maurice's whole existence.
Grafton was soothed in his spirit by this whole-hearted homage paid to his girl. She was worth every bit of it, but a lover does not always honour his mistress for what she is; it is often enough for him if she is what he wants her to be. Grafton would have been up in arms at once if Maurice had shown himself merely overjoyed at winning Caroline, and holding himself as if he had only gained his deserts. He was not prepared to look upon her as fulfilling her destiny in decorating and solacing Maurice's unimportant life, however she might think of herself and her duties towards him. But if Maurice looked upon himself as owingher life-long devotion and service, his relationship towards her brought no sense of assumption to her father. It was the right relationship in his view, and he could rest himself upon it, as the conviction strengthened itself that it was based upon something stable and sure in Maurice's character.
Taking pains to find qualities in him that he had not troubled to look for before, he was inclined to wonder that he had thought him dull and uninteresting in conversation. When he had something real to talk about he could talk as well as another, if he were encouraged to do so. The difference that had always hampered him with Grafton, as a much older man, most of whose experiences and interests were beyond his reach, was being solved by the affection that was reaching out for expression. The most learned of men find pleasure in the conversation of those who are not learned, if it is natural, and especially if there is affection to influence it. And Grafton was not learned; his brains were no better than Maurice's, though expression of them came easier to him.
He knew, by the end of those two days, before he went back to his work in London, that he had only to open his heart to Maurice, and he would gain from him all that a man who loved his daughter could want from her husband. He had Dick's affection and friendship. Maurice's was just as well worth having, and it would be given him in still greater measure.
As he travelled up to London he smiled to himself as he remembered the way the Prescotts had receivedthe news. They were the only people, except Miss Waterhouse and Worthing, who knew of it yet.
They had guessed it, Viola had said in triumph. She had told Gerry it was bound to happen, and he had said he had seen it before she had, upon which had followed a fearsome quarrel. The one thing Gerry wouldnotstand was anybody being cleverer than himself, and unless she was prepared to acknowledge herself a sort of bat-eyed idiot their married life would be wrecked sooner or later.
Neither of them had seen anything at all unsuitable in an engagement between Maurice and Caroline. In fact they had seemed to expect Grafton to be at least as pleased about it as they were themselves. He had not led them to suppose that he was not pleased, but had given them opportunities of showing the opinion they held about Maurice.
They had laid stress on his complete unselfishness. "He'll go out of his way to help anybody," Prescott had said. "And he does it because it's his nature to, not because he thinks he ought to. He thinks about himself less than anybody I've ever known. Caroline will have a splendid husband."
There was the unworldly view. The question of station in life did not interest the Prescotts. Grafton knew that it would interest the people he would see in London considerably.
The House in Cadogan Place had been given up, and Grafton had taken a flat. Beatrix dined with him there on Monday. Dick was stationed at Chatham, but was unable to get away that evening.
Beatrix was radiantly happy, and more beautiful than ever. She was growing up to herself all round. Every time that he saw her, Grafton congratulated himself anew upon having saved her from that other marriage. Perhaps at first she would have shown herself just as happy in it; but he would always have been looking for developments, and changes, none of which he would have expected to be for the better. Now he knew that all her charm of character could find safe play, and add to her own happiness and the happiness of those about her, and that its deeper qualities would be brought into being too, fostered and strengthened. There was a quality of all-round fitness in her marriage upon which he, who loved her, could rest himself with pleasure. And she was always demonstratively affectionate towards him when they met, though not quite in the same way as she had been before her marriage. All her thoughts were centred in Dick, and if he had not been prepared to accept Dick as deserving of all that she gave him, he wouldhave felt the difference. But there was nothing about Dick that he did not like and respect. He had taken him in, as he had told Caroline he must be able to take in his daughters' husbands, if he were not to feel too acutely their loss, and as he was now struggling to take Maurice in, for Caroline's sake, and also for his own.
"Daddy, darling, howawfulthis is about Caroline!" was Beatrix's first word upon that subject.
He had not expected quite such a determined expression of opinion, and hardly knew what to reply for the moment. It gave him a slight sinking of heart, he had no time to ask himself why.
"You haven't told her you think it's awful, have you?" he asked.
"Oh, no, of course not. I've written her a very nice letter. So has Dick. And we've both written to Maurice. It seems funny to have to call him Maurice. If she'sgotto marry him, Dick says we must treat him as if we were pleased about it. And she told us that you had been simply adorable about it. So we knew that was the line you'd like us to take. But you can't really be pleased, are you, Dad?"
"Why do you think it's so awful?" he asked.
"Oh, Daddy, darling,lookat him! Look at him beside a man like Dick."
This rather annoyed him, but he did not show it. "Oh, well, look atanybodybeside Dick!" he said, pinching her chin.
Dinner was announced at that moment, and the subjectwas avoided until the servant left them alone together. Then Grafton spoke immediately. "Look here, B darling," he said, "I hope you won't go about crabbing this marriage of Cara's. If you do, she's bound to find it out sooner or later, and it will make her unhappy. It won't alter anything. She won't take your view of him, you know, and it can only divide her from you. It will make a cleavage in our family, and that's just what I don't want. You'll each have your own homes, but your old home will be a centre for all of you too. This chap will be part of the family now, and we've got to accept him, for Caroline's sake."
She laughed at him. "This chap!" she repeated. "You darling transparent old thing! You think it's just as odd as I do—her marrying like that. You didn't talk of Dick as 'this chap!'"
He was annoyed with himself for the slip. He had not meant to excuse or explain himself to Beatrix, but now he would have to. "That's just what I was warning you about," he said. "I don't deny that there are certain things one has to get over, and until you do get over them you're likely to let drop something that shows you haven't quite. That's what you must be careful about."
"Well, darling, I'm glad you haven't been so careful as all that, with me. You can quite safely tell me everything. It wouldn't be nice of you to pretend before me. I might think it very splendid of you, but I shouldn't love you more for it. I'm quite ready toback you up in keeping what you really think from Caroline."
He felt the ground slipping from beneath his feet. "What does Dick say about it?" he asked. "Can't he see anything in Maurice that all the world can't see?"
"He thinks he is very nice; but of course he doesn't look upon him as a suitable husband for Caroline. He doesn't think you can either, and he can't make out why you don't try to stop it. You did with me—before—and we've never ceased blessing you for it."
"I didn't try to stop it with you because that fellow—I suppose you've no objection to my calling him that—"
"You can call him what you like, darling."
"Well, I didn't object to him because he hadn't got enough money. That's about what it would come to here."
"Oh, no, it isn't, darling. And you don't think it is either."
"Oh, if you can't talk about it sensibly, B, we'd better chuck it." He rose from the table.
She rose too and slipped her arm into his as they went into the other room, and laughed at him. "I think it's awfully sweet of you to want to make the best of it," she said. "I won't worry you any more, darling, if you're certain that nothingcanstop it."
"Well, you ought to be able to see it as I do. You know what Caroline is. She wouldn't give her love, and take it away again when the sort of objectionsthat you feel towards Maurice are pointed out to her. She's faced all that, and it doesn't matter to her. She sees a lot more in him than you can, or than I've been able to; though I tell you that thereisa lot in him, andI'mquite ready to accept him. So you—and Dick—ought to make the effort too."
They were standing together before the fire, her arm still in his. Her face was graver, as she said: "Caroline is different to me. That's quite true."
"I haven't meant anything I've said to reflect on you."
"I know, darling. But you wouldn't treat it like that if it were me, all the same. Well, of course we shall be as nice about it as ever we can, and if he does turn into something that makes him more equal to Caroline it will be all the easier. It's quite beyond me to think of him as her equal now, Dad, so you mustn't expect me to do it."
"Oh, well, don't show it; that's all I ask," he said.
The view taken of the affair by Lady Grafton, whom he saw in the course of the week, was that it was his own fault for burying Caroline in the country. If he hadn't wanted her there whenever he went down to Abington she would have gone about more and met the right sort of men.
"Oh, my dear Mary!" he said. "She has been meeting what you call the right sort of men all her life. She doesn't want the life she'd lead with them. And as for saying that I've kept her down there, you know that's ridiculous. As a matter of fact it hasrather worried me that she never wanted to go anywhere else, and I'd told her so."
"I suppose she had fallen in love with this youth, and didn't want to go away."
"Now you're talking more ridiculously than ever. I believe she was as much surprised as I was when she found out what had happened to her."
"That doesn't sound very likely, George. You told me once that you would know all about it when Caroline's time came; and I told you, I remember, that you wouldn't know anything about it at all. And that's what has happened."
"I suppose you want to annoy me, Mary. You can be the most exasperating of women, and I wonder James has put up with you as long as he has."
"James knows when he's well off. I've never given him a moment's uneasiness in all my blameless life. Why on earth can't you get this put off, as you did with B? You acted so wisely there; and see what a reward you have had! She has made just the right sort of marriage, and is as happy as happy can be. It's delightful to see her."
This speech had the effect of restoring his good humour. He laughed at her. "That's pretty cool, after the way you went for me last year, about B," he said.
"You're very difficult to please. I said you had been wise, as things have turned out. I didn't say I thought you so wise a year ago. If you knew anything about women you'd see how great a concession I've made in acknowledgingthat you were right, and I was wrong. Now there's a marriage in question much more unsatisfactory than that would have been you sit by and do nothing. You can't possibly like it, and I know quite well why you're giving in. I don't think you ought."
"Why do you suppose I am giving in?"
"Because you're so weak with your girls that you daren't go against them. You're afraid they wouldn't be pleased with you."
He laughed again. "Illogical creature!" he said. "B wasn't at all pleased with me, and I stuck out, for her sake."
"And made an awful lot of fuss about it too. You're afraid of the same thing happening with Caroline, and you daren't face it. That's the plain truth behind all this talk of her knowing exactly what she wants, and your accepting her judgment rather than your own. She knows exactly what she wants now because she's in love. A woman can't judge a man when she's in love with him."
"Perhaps not; but she can judge him before, and Caroline has known this particular man for over a year. So have I, and I say that there's a lot more in him than a person like you can take into account."
"Ah, now you're being abominably rude, which shows that I've made an impression on you. No man can stand being put in the wrong. If you had half the pluck that you think you have you'd risk Caroline behaving to you like B did, and save her from making a mistake."
"You see, I don't think she is making a mistake. You don't know Caroline as well as I do."
"I know Caroline very well. And I know women in general much better than you do."
"On the outside, perhaps. But you're rather a shallow character yourself, and one wouldn't expect you to understand everything about a girl like Caroline. You're also the least little bit of a snob. Most people are, and it's nothing particular against you."
"It's no use trying to make me angry, because you won't succeed. If I can stand being called a snob I can stand anything, and it doesn't make the least impression on me. Besides, it's a ridiculous charge in this connection."
"You don't object to young Bradby for anything that he is in himself; you only object because you don't think he's a good match for Caroline."
"Quite so. But that's not snobbery; it's common sense. However, I see you're determined to have your own way, and I shan't say any more. You have the air of being one of the most reasonable men in the world, and you're really one of the most obstinate, as well as quite one of the rudest. However, no woman who didn't know you as well as I do would be likely to find that out, and in a general way your manners are charming. Now you have lost B, and are going to sacrifice Caroline, I think you might do what I once advised you to, and marry again, yourself. It would put an end to all this acute annoyance you show so plainly when somebody else comes along to interferewith the arrangements you have made for a comfortable family life that shall centre round yourself."
There was a pause, and then Grafton threw his head back and roared with laughter. "That's in return for the accusation of snobbery, I suppose," he said.
Lady Grafton laughed too. "I can be just as rude as you can," she said, "and I can do it much more subtly. I wish you wouldn't make me laugh, and spoil everything. I'm extremely annoyed with you, and there are a lot more offensive things I should like to say. However, I dare say you'll give me another chance. But seriously, George, this isn't the sort of marriage Caroline ought to make. I've seen the young man, and I've nothing against him in his proper place. But he is hopelesslygaucheand middle-class. That's bound to tell by and bye. Women are supposed to have no real discrimination about men, and there's this much truth in it that they can and do fall in love with men who are beneath them, just as men fall in love with women who are beneath them. But when they've been brought up like Caroline they simply can't ally themselves with people not of their own class. Before many years are up she'll be criticising him for his deficiencies. If she does marry him of course her relations aren't going to throw her over for it, but she'll drop out completely. Some men can learn, and raise themselves from the class they were born in, especially if they have clever wives; but I'm sure this young man isn't one of them. He'll keep her down towhat he is himself, and really, George, it's a good deal below what Caroline is, or what she ought to be given over to."
"Well, Mary, you've put it sensibly at last. But you're wrong in several particulars, all the same. If it were as simple and obvious as all that I should agree with you; so would Caroline, for that matter, and she wouldn't want to marry him. What you've missed altogether is that the boy has character. I've come to see it already, and he'll grow into something that she can be proud of. Another thing you've missed is that she really doesn't want to live in the usual round. She has kept herself almost entirely out of it for the last eighteen months, because she likes her quiet country life better. She'll have that with him, and she'll get more companionship in the sort of things she likes doing than with a fellow like Francis Parry, for instance."
"Ah, poor Francis! I don't know whathe'llsay when he hears about it. Fancy preferring young Bradby to a man like that! Well, if Caroline really does, and you're going to back her up in it, she's not quite what I thought she was, and I suppose I'd better let it alone."
"I really think you had, Mary. If Caroline isn't quite what you thought she was, I assure you she hasn't deteriorated. As far as I'm concerned there's something in all your jibes, but not as much as you think there is. I do hate losing my girls. They've been more to me than most daughters are to their fathers, because I've only had them. But because Ifeel like that, I should be all the more careful not to let it affect my actions towards them. My thoughts perhaps I can't help it affecting. And it's true that I shrink from going through with Caroline what I did with B. But that wouldn't deter me from standing out if I saw good reason to do so. I don't; so I'm not going to spoil things by giving in grudgingly."
"You're even going to hurry on the marriage, I hear. And you're providing them with a house—of course at Abington. I don't object to that though. Caroline won't lose everything that she's been used to having, and if you get rather more of her society than you're entitled to, perhaps you deserve it, as you're acting so nobly."
Which left the last word with Lady Grafton.
Lady Handsworth was not so critical. She said that she did not understand it, but she seemed more ready than Lady Grafton to agree that any man whom Caroline loved must be worth loving. She thought it a pity that Grafton should not allow time to work, as he might well have done under all the circumstances, instead of making it possible for Caroline to marry at once without giving her time to think better of it. But Lady Handsworth had never seen Maurice, and did not regard him, as Lady Grafton did, as below the point of gentility with which Caroline ought to ally herself. So her objections were not likely to be so strong, and Grafton managed to satisfy her that holding out would not alter matters, and that an early marriage would make for Caroline's happiness.
Young George had a 'short leave' during this week and spent it with his father. He had no objections to urge against the marriage. "I like Maurice, and always have," he said. "I think he'll make a jolly good husband for Caroline, Dad, if you help 'em along a bit. I don't suppose he'll ever make much boodle; but as long as they have enough to get on with I don't think Caroline will mind that."
Grafton was pleased to find his son holding these views. There is nobody more critical of outward appearance than an Eton boy of Young George's age, and if Maurice had succeeded in impressing himself upon him to this extent, it showed that his departure from recognised type was no serious hindrance to him.
"What does the illustrious Jimmy say about it?" he asked.
"Jimmy doesn't know Maurice as well as I do. He can only see that he doesn't brush his hair well, and all that sort of thing. His people are all right, aren't they, Dad?"
"Oh, yes. One of his brothers called on me at the Bank yesterday.Hishair was brushed all right, and he would have passed all Jimmy's tests. I like your view much better, Bunting. I dare say I should have taken Jimmy's when I was your age, but as you grow older you learn to judge by other standards. I'm glad you've begun to do that already."
"Well, I suppose if it was anybody I didn't know so well as I do Maurice I might not care about it much for Caroline. That's why I don't blame Jimmymuch, though he's rather a swanky ass over that sort of thing."
"What is it you like particularly about Maurice? He's so much younger than I am—and always seemed rather alarmed in my presence—that I hadn't sized him up as well as you seem to have done."
Young George was flattered at having his opinion asked in this way, and thought a little before answering. "One of the things I like about him is just that he doesn't try to swank," he said. "I suppose it wouldn't be very difficult to make your hair stick down and buy the right sort of ties and collars if you wanted to. But he doesn't think it's important. He's as keen as mustard on making the best of himself in other ways. He thinks everybody has his own line in life if he can only find it. He's found his all right, but he did his work as well as he knew how, as long as he was in that beastly bank. We've talked a lot about that sort of thing. I like him as a pal as well as anybody I know, except you, Dad."
"Have you talked about your own career in life, Bunting?"
"We've talked a good deal about school. He thinks most fellows don't take their work seriously enough. He did his, but he says he hasn't got that sort of brain, and didn't make much of a hand at it. But he says it makes all the difference if you look upon school work as something you've got responsibility for, yourself, and don't leave it all to the beaks, to see that they get something out of you."
"Have you acted on his advice?"
"Well, yes, I have. I'm supposed to be rather a sap at school. But I find it rather jolly to take an intelligent interest in what I'm doing. Saves a lot of trouble with the beaks too."
"You never told me that, old boy. I'm glad to hear it."
"Well, I thought you were keener on my getting my eleven some day, Dad."
Grafton laughed. "Oh, we fathers!" he said. "And then they complain of a public-school education. But I like the idea of your working too, Bunting. I'm afraid I had nobody to string me up to it when I was at school; but I've done some work since, and liked doing it as well as anything. You'll find most men who are worth anything do. And certainly school work is interesting if you make it so for yourself. Maurice is a worker, isn't he? That's something good about him."
"Oh, yes; and he's dead straight too. He's a chap you can't help having a respect for. Of course I like Dick, awfully. He's straight too, and keen on his job. But I think there's even more in Maurice than there is in Dick. He wouldn't have done for B, but he'll do all right for Caroline. He thinks all the world of her, too. I know that."
"Did you see this coming, then, Bunting?"
"Well, no, I didn't. I didn't think she liked him in that sort of way, though she was always jolly decent to him. She seemed a lot older than him, and of coursehe is a bit different from the men she's made friends with before. But I'm glad she's had the sense to see what a good chap he is. Jimmy says she might have married anybody, and it's a come-down for her. But I don't think so."
"Nor do I, old son," said Grafton. "Nothing that Caroline could possibly do would be a come-down for her. She's one of the people you can always trust to do what's right."
"She gets it from you, Dad."
"No, old boy. She gets it from somebody much better than me."
Caroline was married at the beginning of the year. The Abbey was full of guests, as for Beatrix's wedding, but there was no occasion to find other rooms elsewhere; there had not been such a demand for invitations. Caroline had wanted a very quiet wedding. She was not going to marry into a more or less exalted position, as Beatrix had done, and was going to begin, and continue, her married life in a very modest way. But her father had wanted no difference made between her and Beatrix, and she had given way.
It must be confessed, however, that her wedding was not the bright success that Beatrix's had been. It was, at the outset, one of those social functions which were to be dropped out of Caroline's life altogether. Maurice was not calculated to shine in them, in any capacity, least of all as a leading figure. He was as well dressed as he ever could be—Worthing had seen to that—but he did not look at ease in his wedding garments, and his almost bucolic air was heightened rather than diminished by them. Also he looked extraordinarily young; and a man who depends on the virile force within him, and lacks most of the graces of youth, does not show to any advantage until the years have passed over his head. The contrast between him andCaroline, in the full flower of her young grace and beauty, was so marked as scarcely to escape the notice of the most sympathetic, and there were many there who were far from being sympathetic with a marriage which in their view was nothing short of a misalliance. Nobody expressed this view to Grafton, but those who held it showed themselves rather too careful not to. Its atmosphere was all around him, and he felt more uncomfortable and doubtful than at any time since he had brought himself to consent.
When the bride and bridegroom had driven off he was feeling so depressed that he determined to escape his duties as host for a time, and slip out for a walk. There was nearly an hour of winter twilight left, and a sharp frost. A fast walk would brace him in mind and body.
He went upstairs to change his clothes. He could get down by a staircase at the other end of the corridor and escape from the house without being seen, except perhaps by some of the servants.
As he slipped into a tweed suit and put on a pair of thick-soled boots his unease of mind deepened. His black hour was upon him. Only at the death of his wife sixteen years before had he felt the heavy weight upon his mind that he felt now. But for that one big grief he had dwelt in the sunshine of prosperity, pleasure, the liking of his friends, the love of his children. The upset of mind he had endured over Beatrix a year before had been by far the biggest that had troubled him for all those long years, and thathad never brought him the black cloud that was settling on him now.
The marked difference in atmosphere between Caroline's wedding and Beatrix's was not the cause of his mood, though it heightened, and perhaps had induced it. He had tested and examined himself so searchingly during the past weeks that the plainly-to-be-noticed disapproval of others could not now affect his own conviction that he had taken the right course. All of those who had a right to express their opinions had had their opportunity of expressing them directly to him, and he had answered them. And he had satisfied himself, by many signs and tokens, of Maurice's essential fitness for the great trust he had reposed in him. He already felt an affection for the boy; that was the reward he had gained from sinking his own prejudices, and making a strong effort to see him with Caroline's eyes. It was a big reward. It had removed from him all the discomfort of feeling that she was wasting her fine gifts upon one who could give her no adequate return for them. He had come to see that she was fulfilling herself in this marriage, and that the expression of her true and tender nature would flower beautifully under it, though its flowering might be hidden from the world at large.
Nor had he had to make the adjustments of his own attitude that had troubled him when Beatrix had given her love. Caroline had come to be more to him than ever before, because he had been able to enter with her into the deeper places of her heart. That reward hehad also gained from his self-suppression. She trusted him and loved him, and had shown it as she had always shown it, without once causing him to feel that he was ever so little shouldered out of his place in her heart.
And yet the sense of irreparable loss was there in this black hour, and was growing deeper every moment. He hurried on his changing so as to get away by himself and keep it at bay by fast movement; and, if he could, to fight it down and regain his accustomed equanimity.
It was the sense of change and passing in his own life that had descended upon him so heavily as Caroline had driven off from her old home, with her face set towards her new one. With parents happily married, where family life is welded by strong affection and community of taste and pursuit, there comes this sense of breaking up when their children begin to leave them. They are no longer the centre round which their children's lives revolve. Mothers feel it most when their boys go to school, fathers when their daughters marry. But the family life goes on; though not in its fullest measure. Grafton's had come to an end. He might have Barbara with him for a time when she had finished her education. Young George would only occasionally be at home, for years to come. Miss Waterhouse would be there. That was all that would remain of the happy years in which he had had them all around him.
Caroline would be near him, but no longer in his home, to surround him with all the devotion that hadbrought him such solace since the death of her mother. He had not known how much he depended upon her until Beatrix's marriage. She had been almost everything to him since, and had kept him from the sense of loss that was weighing on him now, when Beatrix had left him. But it was the loss of both of them that he was feeling, and the end and finish of the longest and one of the best chapters of his life. What was his life to be in the future? It was that question to which he wanted to find some sort of answer before he faced again the people who had come to celebrate the opening of a new chapter for Caroline, but the close of one for him.
When he was ready to leave his room he paused before the portrait of his young wife hanging over the mantelpiece. He had never wanted her more than he did now, to tread the downward slope with him.
As he went along the corridor, the door of a room on the other side of it opened, and Ella Carruthers, who was staying in the house, came out. She also was dressed in tweeds and walking boots, and as they looked at one another she laughed and said: "I see we both want the same thing—to get away for a bit and think about it."
His first feeling was one of annoyance. Caught like that, he could not suggest that he should go his way and she hers. But he wanted no companionship in his efforts to face what he had to face.
But when he had said lightly: "We'll go for a sharp walk together, but don't let anybody else see us," hebecame conscious that just this companionship would be good for him.
She had been so much with his daughters that she was almost like one of his own family. She was only three or four years older than Caroline. During the disturbance of mind he had undergone at the time of Beatrix's engagement to Lassigny she had given him more help than anybody—more help even than Caroline, because she had a wider knowledge and experience; and she had shown wisdom with Beatrix too, who had listened to her when she would have listened to nobody else. If anybody could do so, she would help him over his dark hour.
So they set out together through the park, making for unfrequented roads and lanes, and walking fast.
Neither of them spoke for some time. Then Ella said: "I'm afraid it hasn't been much of a success; but I think you were right all the same."
"Right in what?" he asked. "In having apukkawedding?"
"I didn't mean that, but I think you were right there, too. It showed, anyhow, thatyouweren't ashamed of it."
This was pretty plain speaking. But he had encouraged that from her. And she had already discussed Maurice with him.
"It was rather tiresome to have them all turning up their noses at him," he said. "It reflected on Caroline, and I felt it because of that. For myself I don't mind much. I took my own line long ago, and I've no reasonto regret it. If you've done what you think is right, you're not much affected by the opinion of other people, especially when they don't judge by your standards. Do you think my poor little Caroline noticed it?"
"Noticed the sort of atmosphere of disapproval, do you mean?"
"She can hardly have helped noticing it. Did she mind?"
"I expect she would rather not have had him subjected to that test. It's the worst he'll ever have to go through, poor boy. But she would look upon it in the same way as you do—only more so. She would know that they couldn't judge him as she does. I expect it would make her feel all the more tender towards him. What he is is for her alone."
"Then I don't think we need worry. And it's all over for her now. All over for me, too. Ella, I'm feeling it damnably. I came out to get myself straight. As you've come with me you must allow me to be purely egoistic. I want to go back rather happier than I came out. You helped me before; I believe you can help me now."
"I'll try," she said. "I expect I know something about it."
"I don't think you can know much, my dear. It will be a good many years yet before you have to face the fact that you're getting old."
She laughed lightly. "If that's what's the matter with you," she said, "I can sweep the trouble away altogether. You've always seemed to me about asyoung as any of us, and you'll go on being young till you die. It isn't a question of years. I thought it was the reaction of the last few months."
"Well, I suppose it is. But what do you mean by that?"
"I think you've behaved most awfully well," she said. "I've admired you very much for it, and I'm glad I can say so."
"Oh, you mean about accepting Maurice. But that's all over long ago. It was a bit difficult at first, but it hasn't been difficult lately. No, it isn't that, except that the late performance hasn't cheered me up exactly. I think I should feel just the same if Caroline had married somebody that all the world would have accepted as suited to her. It has brought my life as I've lived it to an end. That's what's the matter with me, Ella. I've got to rearrange it for myself, and it's rather a bleak prospect."
"Tell me about it," she said. "I don't quite see."
"Well, I suppose most men of my sort, who have work that suits them, and enough money to get all the pleasures they want, are more or less content with that when they get to my age, even if their children mean a good deal to them. But I'm not. Family life has been the best thing I've had, and I don't know what I shall do without it."
"You haven't lost them all, have you? And when you come down here you'll have Caroline almost as much as before."
"Ah, but it won't be the same. That came simplyrushing over me as she drove away. She's been the dearest daughter to me. She's centred herself on me. I suppose she's made me selfish. She's given me all that she could of what her mother would have given me. I've never valued her half enough. I think I loved B better than her when they were both children. Not much better, but perhaps enough to make her feel the difference. That's rather a bad memory just now. I may have done it in ways that I haven't meant to, that may have hurt her."
"I'm sure you needn't trouble yourself about that, dear Mr. Grafton," she said, with some earnestness. "She is devoted to you, in a way she couldn't be if you hadn't been just as much to her as she has to you. It has been lovely to see you together. And what you've been able to do lately has cemented it all as nothing else could have done. I know she's felt it deeply, because she's told me so. She's full of gratitude and love for you. And I think you've earned it all. Oh,pleasedon't trouble yourself in that way. I'm sure you needn't."
"Well, perhaps I needn't. There can't have been much wrong, or she wouldn't have been able to give me what she has. I don't think it's that, either, that is descending on me now. Things are right between me and all my children. I've only lost what every man must lose when he gets to my age; only, like Mrs. Gummidge, I feel it more. They have been my chosen companions. They've kept me young between them. It isn't only that I love them. I've liked doing thingswith them better than with anybody else. I get on with other men as well as most people. Perhaps before the children grew up I enjoyed myself going about and amusing myself with my friends as much as any man could. But for the last few years, and especially since we came to live here, I've liked being with them better than anybody—I never knew how much better until just now. When I've been up in London I've been looking forward all the week to getting down here again. I tell you, it's a bleak prospect to go back to the sort of life I found pleasant enough ten years ago. I think I've outgrown it. It's just passing the time. There's nothing left to make it worth while."
She was silent for a time, and then said: "You know, your case and mine aren't so very different. Until you all came to live here, and took me in so happily, I was really only passing the time. It has made a lot of difference to me getting all the companionship and affection I have had here. I feel the break up of your family, too. It has been a delightful bit of life, and I feel it hasn't lasted half long enough. Still, it isn't really all over, though it has altered. Caroline will be here, and Barbara by and bye. Beatrix and Bunting, too, sometimes; and I count for a little, don't I, Mr. Grafton? You've let me think myself almost one of your family."
"Oh, my dear child, you've made yourself part of it as nobody else has. I couldn't talk like this to anybody but you—not even to the Dragon, who has an indulgent eye for my weaknesses. It is weak, Isuppose, to grouse as I'm doing. The children are happy, and I've helped to make them so. It's only myself I'm thinking of, and I shan't inflict my troubles on anybody after this. You've caught me just at the time."
"I'm very glad I have," she said. "Perhaps I can do something for you in return for all you've done for me. One of the last things Caroline said to me, upstairs, was, 'Take care of my darling old Daddy, while I'm away.' So you seeshewas thinking of you, left alone, up to the last; and she treats me as one of the family. I know I can't take her place, or B's; but I can do something if you'll let me. You've been awfully good to me. You've always given me help when I've wanted it, and it hasn't been altogether easy to behave myself as a responsible person, when I'm still young enough to prefer to be looked after."
He smiled at her kindly. "All women want looking after," he said. "But you've shown yourself remarkably capable."
She smiled in return, rather ruefully. "I try to be," she said. "But I don't always feel it. It has been a great comfort to know I could apply to you in my difficulties. You'll let me make some return now, won't you? Caroline entrusted me to you, you know."
"The dear child! Well, my dear, you've done me good already. I thought you would. Yes, you've made yourself one of us, Ella. It won't be so desolating to come down here, if you're about. I shall be bringing people down, but they won't make up to mefor the loss of my girls. You will; so I shall hope to see you over here as much as ever."
They reached the house again, and went in by the same way. Barbara met them in the upstairs corridor. "Dad, I've been looking for you everywhere," she said. "Where ever have you both been?"
"For a little walk to clear our brains," he said. "Now we're ready to take up our duties again. What do you want, darling?"
It seemed that she wanted nothing in particular. She talked to him for half a minute outside his room, and then went downstairs to join the rest.
That evening Ella found herself in a corner of the Long Gallery with Lady Grafton, with whom she had made friends.
"You're looking very beautiful to-night," said her ladyship, with an appraising and approving eye on her, "and most surprisingly young. How old are you, exactly? I should have said about nineteen."
"Thank you very much," said Ella. "I'm twenty-five. Sometimes I feel immeasurably older, but my happiest state is when I can think of myself as still a girl."
"Well, you look like one to-night; as I said, about nineteen. I can't think why you haven't married again. You must often have thought of it."
She blushed, quite like a girl. She was tall and slim and upright, and had some of the lithe grace of a beautiful Greek boy. She was beautiful in feature and colouring too, though it was not the kind of beautythat is always radiantly apparent, as Beatrix's was. But to-night she was at her best, and deserved the encomiums passed upon her by Lady Grafton, who was nothing if not critical.