"You forget one thing," she said finally, "the fact that he probably inherits something of my nature. I have to a hopeless degree what is called the artistic temperament."
Locking away the miniature again, Lady Wychcote permitted herself a sourire fin. "It would not have annoyed you had you been my daughter," was what she said.
It was useless to bicker with her. Sophy merely changed the subject by giving her an account of Cecil's indignation over Bellamy's lack of directness with him. Lady Wychcote, who could be reasonable enough when she wished, agreed to speak with Bellamy herself on the subject.
The next day, by the first morning train, Anne Harding arrived at Dynehurst. She was a small, slight but wiry woman of about thirty-five, and her curly black hair was still short, having been cropped some months previous during an attack of typhoid. This short, curling hair and a smile of singular ingenuousness, gave her an almost childlike air at times. Sophy, as she took in the nurse's appearance, wondered where in that small body lurked the courage and determination necessary for such a profession. She wondered how Nurse Harding would strike Cecil. Would he take one of his rough-and-ready fancies to her, or detest her from the first. She talked plainly and quietly to her. When she had finished, she said:
"How do you think it will be best for you to meet Mr. Chesney, Nurse? Shall I tell him that you are here first? Shall I go in with you?"
Anne Harding consulted the little watch in its leather bracelet on her thin, sinewy dark wrist. She had black eyes full of fire and subdued laughter. Sophy realised suddenly that she looked something like the pictures of Hall Caine as a young man—and incidentally that she also resembled a very alert, large-eyed insect of some sort. This made her smile. Anne Harding, catching the glimmer of this smile as she looked up from her watch, thought:
"What a perfectly lovely woman! Of course a woman like this had to go and marry a morphinomaniac."
Then she asked practically, before herself answering Sophy's question:
"How does Mr. Chesney take his nourishment? Every two hours?"