CHAPTER X
PALGRAVE had not gone to the drawing-room, and that, at all events, was a comfort. A wood fire burned on the hearth and near it Nancy was holding wool for Mrs. Chadwick to wind. Barbara had been sent to bed and Meg and Miss Toner sat on the sofa hand in hand. Even in the pressure of his distress and anxiety Oldmeadow could but be aware of amusement at seeing Meg thus. It had, of course, been Miss Toner who had taken her hand. But no one else could have taken it. No one else could have been allowed to go on holding it placidly before on-lookers of whose mirthful impressions Meg must be well aware. She didn’t mind in the least. That was what Miss Toner had done to her. She enjoyed having her hand held by anyone so much interested in her.
Barney walked to the fireplace and stood before it. He had no faculty for concealing his emotions and the painful ones through which he had just passed were visible on his sensitive face.
“Give us a song, Meg,” Oldmeadow suggested. He did not care for Meg’s singing, which conveyed, in a rich, sweet medium, a mingled fervour and shallowness of feeling. But to hear her sing would be better than to see her holding Miss Toner’s hand.
Barney crossed at once to the seat Meg vacated and dropped down into it, no doubt thanking his friend for what he imagined to be a display of tact, and Oldmeadow saw the quiet, firm look that flowed over and took possession of him. Miss Toner knew, of course, that Barney had been having painful emotions; and she probably knew that they had been caused by the dry, deep-hearted Meredithian hero. But after the long look she did not speak to him. She sat in her pearls and whiteness and gave careful attention to the music.
Oldmeadow accompanied Meg, tolerantly, and a trifle humorously, throwing a touch of mockery into his part. Meg’s preference to-night seemed to be for gardens; Gardens of Sleep; Gardens of Love; God’s Gardens. “What a wretch you are, Roger,” she said, when she had finished. “You despise feeling.”
“I thought I was wallowing in it,” Oldmeadow returned. “Did I stint you?”
“No; you helped me to wallow. That’s why you’re such a wretch. Always showing one that one is wallowing when one thinks one’s soaring. It’s your turn, now, Adrienne. Let’s see if he’ll manage to make fun of you.”
“Does Miss Toner sing, too? Now do you know, Meg,” said Oldmeadow, keeping up the friendly banter, “I’m sure she doesn’t sing the sort of rubbish you do.”
“I think they’re beautiful songs,” Mrs. Chadwick murmured from her wool, “and I think Roger played them most beautifully. Why should you say he is making fun of you, Meg?”