"It's a great comfort to hear you say that. It's only what I was going to assure you."
"Besides, do you suppose for one moment that if I had any fault to find with my son I should send for you?"
She already had an annoying fancy that he was defeating her, laughing at her, and turning the tables.
"It seemed certainly rather strange," Harry said.
"No, indeed! When I say I was troubled as a mother, I meant it in a very different sense. What I'm afraid of is that dear Romer might be worried if he heard the report to which I refer."
"And that is?..."
She looked at him spitefully, yet with a reluctant admiration.
He was irritatingly good-looking, good-humoured, and at his ease, and particularly well-dressed, without appearing in the least conscious of it. She wished immensely that he had been plain, or awkward, or even out at elbows, or absurdly dandified, or looked nouveau riche, or something! She felt jealous of him for Romer, and, at the back of her brain, she grudgingly and perversely sympathised a little with her daughter-in-law. Harry radiated a peculiar charm for women of all ages. He did not study them nor try very much to please them; the fascination was involuntary; he simply used it.
"And that is, that you and my daughter-in-law, Valentia, were seen alone——" she paused a moment, showing a latent instinct for dramatic effect.
He smiled a little more, and bent his head forward with every sign of intelligent interest.