“Yes, I understand that,” returned North. He felt, as a matter of fact, particularly helpless. What Riversley had just told him, coupled with Violet’s outburst to himself that afternoon, worried and disturbed him not a little. He remembered those words of hers: “Sometimes I am frightened.” The words overwrought, hysterical, long-strained, jumbled in his mind and brought no comfort. Then suddenly, like a hand stretched out to a stumbling man, came the thought of Thorpe, its radiant peace, the steady eyes of Ruth Seer. And with that came the thought of Dick Carey. He looked across at Riversley.
“There’s one thing I’d like to tell you,” he said, “and that is, Dick wished Violet had chosen you instead of himself. He felt somehow that you were really better suited to her.”
Riversley’s eyes met his in blank amazement. “Dick thought that?”
“He always felt he was too old for Vi. But she was desperately in love with him, and he knew it, and you know old Dick. Besides, Vi could twist almost any man round her little finger. But that he would have been glad if her choice had fallen on you instead of himself, I have no doubt whatever.”
Riversley stood up, filling his chest with a long breath. “Thank you for telling me,” he said. “It’s a help.”
“There’s one other thing I’d like to say,” North went on, speaking rather hurriedly, “and that is, see that you and Vi don’t get like myself and her mother. Vi is like her in some ways, and though no doubt I’ve been in fault too, and we were always wholly unsuited, yet we began under better conditions than you have. And now we’ve got on each other’s nerves so much that everything she says or does irritates me, and vice versa. We can’t get right now if we would. She thinks she’s fond of me still, because it’s the correct thing to be fond of your husband, but it’s far nearer hatred than love. And I—have no delusions. And for God’s sake, my boy, keep clear of following in our footsteps.”
“We come of a different generation, sir,” said Riversley simply. “If we can’t hit it off, we shall part. Only if there is trouble ahead for her, and I am afraid there is, I’m right there.”
North looked at him with kindly eyes, but he sighed. He knew only too well how the long years of misunderstanding, and irritability, and want of give and take, can wear out what at first seemed such a wonderful and indestructible thing.
“Roger! Roger!” shrilled his wife’s voice from the lawn. “Everyone is going. Aren’t you coming to say good-bye?”
She flashed on their vision as she called, her face flushed with indignation under her beflowered hat, her hands full of small boxes, tissue paper and cotton wool.