"Once or twice! When was the last time, child? On Saturday? Here in this room? Ah, I see the truth in your face. Never mind how I know it. I want to know nothing more. Now you can go: I am busy, and shall probably have to be out late to-night."
With these words he led the girl gently out of the room, kissed her on the forehead before he shut the door, and then returned to his work. He did not dine with his sister and daughter, but sent a message of excuse. Later in the evening, Sarah reported to Miss Brooke that "Master had gone out, looking very much upset about something or other; and he'd taken his overcoat and his big stick, which showed, she supposed, that he was off to the slums he was so fond of." Sarah did not approve of slums.
CHAPTER XXXII.
ETHEL KENYON'S WEDDING-DAY.
The morning of Ethel Kenyon's wedding-day was as bright and sunny as any wedding day had need to be. The weather was unusually warm, and the trees were already showing the thin veil of green which is one of spring's first heralds in smoky London town. The window-boxes in the Square were gay with hyacinth and crocus-blossom. The flower-girls' baskets were brilliant with "market bunches" of wall-flowers and daffodils—these being the signs by which the dwellers in the streets know that the winter is over, that the time of the singing of birds has come, and that the voice of the turtle is heard in the land. The soft breezes blew a fragrance of violets and lilac-blossom from the gardens and the parks. London scarcely looked like itself, with the veil of smoke lifted away, and a fair blue sky, flecked with light silvery cloud, showing above the chimney-tops.
Ethel was up at seven o'clock, busying herself with the last touches to her packing and the consideration of her toilet; for she was much too active-minded to care for the seclusion in which brides sometimes preserve themselves upon their wedding-mornings. Some people might have thought that it would not be a very festive day, for her brother was the only near relative who remained to her, and an ancient uncle and aunt who had been, as Ethel herself phrased it, "routed out" for the occasion, were not likely to add much to the gaiety of nations by their presence. Mrs. Durant, lately Ethel's companion, was to remain in the house as Maurice's housekeeper, and she had nominally the control of everything; but Ethel was still the veritable manager of the day's arrangements. She had insisted on having her own way in all respects, and Oliver was not the man to say her nay—just then.
Mrs. Romaine had offered to stay the night with her, and help her to dress; but Ethel had smilingly refused the companionship of her future sister-in-law. "Thanks very much," she had said, in the light and airy way which took the sting out of words that might otherwise have hurt their hearer; "but I don't think there's anything in which I want help, and Lesley Brooke is going to act as my maid on the eventful morn itself."
"Lesley Brooke?" said Mrs. Romaine. She could not altogether keep the astonishment out of her voice.
"Yes, why not?" asked Ethel, with just so much defiance in her voice as to put Mrs. Romaine considerably on her guard. "Have you any objection?"