Alistair was puzzled by his mother’s indifferent tone.
“Will he like me to be there in his absence?” he asked.
The Duchess was equally puzzled.
“Why, what difference does it make to him?” she returned.
“Isn’t there something? I thought—I heard that he and Miss Vanbrugh——”
The Duchess looked at him in surprise.
“Oh, no!” she declared with confidence. “There has never been any idea of that kind. He likes her very much as a friend, but he would not think of anything more. I know exactly what his views are; he has often told me. He means to marry a great fortune. Hero will have money, no doubt,” she was quick to add. “Her father is rich for a professional man, I believe. But, of course, he could not give her enough for Trent.”
Alistair received the assurance with a throb of delight, as his mother’s project suddenly shone out to him in the bright light of hope. But a misgiving of another kind assailed him, and one which he found it more difficult to explain to her. He found himself ashamed to pass straight from the side of Molly Finucane to such a girl as Hero Vanbrugh. It would be almost an insult, he thought; it would be acting as though he sought Hero, not for her own sake, but as a sort of refuge, a substitute for the woman he had left.
The sense of shame which Hero alone had been able to rouse in him returned in its full force at the idea of presenting himself before her with all the stains of his past life still showing, with Molly’s kisses fresh upon his lips. He felt a desire to go away first and purge his life in other scenes, to renew himself in some atmosphere of sweet and strong endeavour from which he could hope to emerge fitter for Hero’s love.
Alistair wondered that his mother did not perceive the indelicacy of such a course as she had proposed, and Caroline on her part wondered at the strange embarrassment with which Alistair at last gave his consent to her plans. It was not easy for these two to understand each other.