"Where is Ted?" asked the Admiral, sitting down by the fire and speaking in his usual pleasant tone.
"He is in the grounds somewhere, directing the gardeners. We are having a good many alterations, which I hope you will consider improvements."
A little later the Major came in. He seemed nervous and ill at ease, and made conversation in jerky tones. Sidney saw that he was manifestly afraid of his wife, for when she left the room for a few moments his whole manner changed. He leant forward eagerly to Sidney:
"I hope you don't mind the changes, Sid? She's a wonderful woman! Such energy and enterprise. But I sometimes wish I could pull her in a bit. But you and she together will put things straight. I don't want anything altered myself. I hope you believe me?"
There was a little wistfulness in his tone.
Sidney reassured him. She was her gay bright self that evening, resolutely suppressing all the tide of anger that rose within her, and trying with all her might to keep her father cheerful. She did not like the look of patient endurance upon his face, the weary dejection in his eyes. She sang some of her old songs to him after dinner, she related their town experiences with great animation, and never let the conversation flag for a moment. Then, when her father went back to his study, she went with him, and sat down on the hearthrug, leaning her head on his knee.
"I did not think it would be so difficult," said her father slowly.
"To leave this, dad? It won't be. We must find a nice little house somewhere in the neighbourhood."
"They say a woman is wrapped up in her possessions," said her father in the same slow, grave way, "but I begin to feel I must be getting like her. If we go, Sidney, all of it will be new. I don't know why my heart fails me. I had hoped to carry away my books and some of our family heirlooms—my mother's picture amongst them, and my wife's miniature. She evidently does not know who it is. But she is quite right—the house, with its contents, was left to Ted. If he has it, he has it all."
"You have me," said Sidney, trying to laugh, but a lump rose in her throat, and a choke was in her voice.