CHAPTER IV
Tea in the drawing-room was over. Mrs. Carrington sat erect, motionless as usual. Augusta and Ellen were pretending to knit; in reality their whole attention was given to Colonel Crayfield, who perambulated about, large and imposing, his hands in his pockets, a disturbance in the old-world atmosphere. Augusta noticed with irritation how he scuffled up the edge of the Persian rug spread in the centre of the room each time he walked over it. Ellen suspected that he wanted to smoke, but she dared not suggest the permission. The Carrington ancestor, gaily indifferent, gazed down at the little conclave that was concerned with the misdeeds of his young descendant.
"It is a difficult question," repeated Colonel Crayfield; he had said the same thing already, several times.
"Would you recommend another school?" asked Augusta. "Some stricter establishment, perhaps, if one could be found, that would receive a girl under the painful circumstances?"
Colonel Crayfield halted beside a table. He picked up a long, narrow scent-bottle, and appeared to examine it closely. Augusta hoped he would not let it fall; the bottle had come from Delhi, was said to have been the property of a Moghul princess, and once to have contained attar of roses.
"Well, on the whole, no," he said presently. "We don't want to break the child's spirit."
"Spirit!" echoed old Mrs. Carrington. "She has the evil spirit of her mother, not the spirit of her father's people, which I foolishly imagined might have counteracted failings inherited from the other side."
To Augusta's relief, Colonel Crayfield replaced the precious scent-bottle, and addressed himself to the three ladies. "If you will pardon my plain speaking, I think you are making too much of this—this indiscretion of Stella's. I had a talk with her this morning——"