"You had better not speak to my mother; it will only worry her. Come in, and tell me about it," said Wyvis, opening the gate, and laying his hand gently on her arm.
She did not resent his tone of mastery. In spite of the many faults and errors that she discerned in him, it always seemed to her that a warmer and finer nature lay below the outside trappings of roughness and coldness than was generally perceptible. And when this better nature came to the front, it brought with it a remembrance of the tie of kinship, and Janetta's heart softened to him at once.
He took her into a room which she guessed to be his own private sanctum—a thoroughly untidy place, littered with books, papers, tools, weapons, gardening implements, pipes and tobacco jars, in fine confusion. He had to clear away a pile of books from a chair before she could sit down. Then he planted himself on a corner of the solid, square oak table in the middle of the room, and prepared to listen to her story. Julian, who interrupted them once, was ordered out of the room again in such a peremptory tone that Janetta was somewhat startled. But really the boy did not seem to mind.
By dint of leading questions he drew from her an outline of the facts of the case, but she softened them, for Nora's sake, as much as possible. She looked at him anxiously when she had done, to see whether he was angry.
"You know," she said, "I don't want to sow dissension of any kind between you."
Wyvis smiled. "I know you don't. But I assure you Cuthbert and I never quarreled in our lives. That is not one of the sins you can lay to my charge. He is a whimsical fellow, and I suspect that this has been one of his freaks—not meaning to hurt anybody. If you leave him to me, I'll stop the drawing-lessons at any rate, and probably the flowers."
"Don't let him think that Nora cares," she said. "She is quite a child—if he had sent her bonbons she would have liked them even better than flowers."
"I understand. I will do my best—as you are so good as to trust me," he answered, lowering his voice.
A little silence fell between them. Something in the tone had made Janetta's heart beat fast. Then there rose up before her—she hardly knew why—the vision of a woman, an imaginary woman, one whom she had never seen—the woman with Julian's eyes, the woman who called herself the wife of Wyvis Brand. The thought had power to bring her to her feet.
"And now I must really go."