"I have asked her to marry me, mother. You do like her, don't you? The governor does. He was only saying to-day how good she was to him. I could not bring you a daughter-in-law whom you did not know. Jockie is like a daughter of the house already."
Mrs. de Cressiers visibly stiffened in her chair. "You might at least have given me some idea of your intentions, Austin. It will be a bitter disappointment to your father. He never anticipated this. Jockie is a good-tempered amusing schoolgirl, no more fitted to be a member of our family than any well-behaved village girl. I can hardly believe that you are in earnest. It was only a year ago that you were infatuated with Mrs. Urquhart."
Austin nodded in a shamefaced manner.
"Yes. Would you have preferred her as a daughter-in-law? I don't think you would. I own I was a fool. But fools can learn wisdom by experience, and Jockie and Mrs. Urquhart are as different as chalk and cheese. You'll find that Jockie will, under your tuition, grow into a de Cressiers under your very eyes. It only wants a great self-assurance, and a firm belief in one's own superiority to the rest of the human race, to stamp the de Cressiers look and tone upon one's face and tongue. I bet you that Jockie will do it easy."
"You have always been different from any of your race," said his mother bitterly. "It is only what I might have expected. She is your sort. I ought not to have hoped for anything different."
Austin, generally so easy going, said a bad word now, and flung himself out of the room. He could not go to his father, for he had retired to his room for the night, so he stamped off to the smoking-room, where he brooded over the unreasonableness and silly pride of some women, and the sweet audacity and warmheartedness and lovableness of one in particular.
"Ah," he said to himself, "Sid will be home to-morrow; she will pour oil on the troubled waters."
But it was not Sidney who brought the first signs of relenting to Mrs. de Cressiers' proud heart. Jockie met Austin the next morning riding off to one of the distant farms on a matter of business. They had a short confabulation together, and arranged to walk up the Beacon in the afternoon.
"How is your mother?" asked Jockie.
Austin tightened his lips.