"At all events, don't pledge yourself. Promise nothing till you see your way."
She was conscious of his new manliness, of the change from boy to man. He was only a year older than herself; and twelve months earlier the difference had seemed to be on the other side. Now he had outstripped her; and with a sense of pleasure she knew that she might begin to look up to him, to appeal to his judgment. But nobody could have guessed those thoughts to be passing through Fulvia's mind, as she stood near the fire, winding a ball of worsted, while the light fell on her reddish, fluffy hair and plain though piquant face.
"You to advise that?"
"Why not?"
"I thought—well, you might yourselves be the losers. Why should I not hand it all over to padre as it comes in? I don't know what on earth to do with such a lot of money."
"You can't hand over the responsibility."
"No, perhaps not. I wish one could transfer responsibilities sometimes; but I don't see after all why one should not—in a sense. I mean, that might be the right use for the money; and then the question of spending would come upon padre."
She swept up some remnants of patchwork, Daisy's leavings, from a side-table, put straight a few books, closed the open piano, and came back to the rug. Nigel's face had fallen again into a thoughtful set. Fulvia, gave him a good look unobserved, for he was gazing into the fire.
"I see you haven't lost your old trick of day-dreams. Has anything teased you at the Rectory? Ethel—did you see Ethel?"
Fulvia could not have told what made her ask the question. She had never thought of Ethel in connection with Nigel. Malcolm Elvey was Nigel's particular friend, and it followed as a matter of course that Nigel should see much of all the Elvey family. But Ethel—why, Ethel was merely a bright, useful girl, on frank and easy terms with Nigel. The very intimacy between the two had always been so simple and natural, so little talked about by either, as almost to exclude from the minds of lookers-on a thought of anything beyond. Fulvia was not, and never had been, greatly in love with the Elveys as a family. She liked Mr. Elvey, but not Mrs. Elvey; and she did not care for Ethel. Her first utterance of the name on this occasion was involuntary. Something in Nigel's face arrested her attention, however, and she at once asked, "Did you see Ethel?"