“If that is so, I daresay you’ll be able to alter matters,” said Madeline, getting up to go.
“Yes, I daresay I shall; it only needs a little readjusting,” Bertha said.
They shook hands in cordial fashion. They did not belong to the gushing school, and, notwithstanding their really deep mutual affection, neither would ever have dreamed of kissing the other.
As soon as Madeline had gone Bertha went and looked steadily and seriously in the glass, for some considerable time. She thought on the whole that it was true that she was looking pretty: on this subject she was perfectly calm, cool and unbiassed, as if judging the appearance of a stranger. For, though she naturally liked to be admired, as all women do, she was entirely without that fluffy sort of vanity, that weak conceit, so indulgent to itself, that makes nearly all pretty women incapable of perceiving when they are beginning to go off, or unwilling to own it to themselves.
The one person for whose admiration and interest she cared for more and more, her Percy, she fancied was growing rather cooler. This crumpled rose-leaf distressed her extremely.
At this moment he arrived home. She heard his voice and his step, and waited for him to come up, with an increasing vividness of colour and expression, with a look of excited animation, that in so sophisticated a woman was certainly, after ten years, a remarkable tribute to a husband.
Percy, who was never very quick, was this evening much longer coming upstairs than usual. He was looking at the letters in the hall. With his long, legal-looking, handsome face, his even features, his fine figure and his expression of mild self-control, and the large, high brow, he had a certain look of importance. He appeared to have more personality then he really had. His manner was impressive, even when one knew—as Bertha certainly did—that he was the mildest, the most amiable and good-natured of serious barristers.
With one of those impulses that are almost impossible to account for, Percy took one of the letters up before the others. It was directed in type. He half opened it, then put it in his pocket. He felt anxious to read it; for some quite inexplicable reason he felt there was something about it momentous, and of interest. It was not a circular, or a bill. It made him feel uncomfortable. After waiting a moment he opened it and read part of it. Then he replaced it in his pocket, and ran up to his room, taking the other unopened letters with him.
“Percy!” called Bertha, as he passed the drawing-room.
“I shall be down in a few minutes,” he called out.