“It’s this accursed war talk!” Palgrave exclaimed. “Eric evidently thinks it serious and he has to come home at once. What rotten luck.”
Adrienne handed the sheets to Mrs. Chadwick. “It will all have blown over by September,” she said. “As Mother Nell says, we can trust Sir Edward to keep us out of anything so wicked as a war. I am so completely with you in all you say about the wickedness of war, Paladin, although I do not see its causes quite so simply, perhaps.”
It was the first time that Oldmeadow had heard the new name for her knight.
“For my part,” said Barney, casting a glance at the house, Barbara not having yet reappeared, “I shall be grateful to the war if it dishes your trip to the Tyrol. It’s most unsuitable for Barbara.”
He did not look at his wife as he spoke. His hat brim pulled down over his eyes, he sat with folded arms and stared in front of him.
“You find it unsuitable for one sister to meet another?” Adrienne inquired. Her eyes were on Barney, but Oldmeadow could not interpret their gaze.
“Most unsuitable, to use no stronger word,” said Barney, “while one sister is living with a man whose name she doesn’t bear.”
“You mean to say,” said Palgrave, sitting cross-legged at Adrienne’s feet and grasping his ankles with both hands, “that Meg, until she’s legally married, isn’t fit for her little sister to associate with?”
“Just what I do mean, Palgrave. Precisely what I do mean,” said Barney, and his face, reddening, took on its rare but characteristic expression of sullen anger. “And I’ll thank you—in my house, after all—to keep out of an argument that doesn’t concern you.”
“Barney; Palgrave,” murmured Mrs. Chadwick supplicatingly. Adrienne, not moving her eyes from her husband’s face, laid her hand on Palgrave’s shoulder.