“No, no!” Maurice was feeling a rush of stupefaction. What had he done? This was not the clue. “Felicia, as far as I understand, didn’t initiate the criticism—resented Angela’s.”
“I see; I understand. It is the proffered friendship she rejects; the community, not the criticism.” Mr. Merrick felt that in Angela’s interpretation of the scene he held a touchstone of its real significance, invisible to Maurice. And how noble had been her further reticence. His anger rose with redoubled vigour over the slight obstacle Maurice had thrown before it. “I see it all,” he repeated; “the quixotic generosity of Lady Angela’s seeking for reconciliation, and Felicia’s rejection of her. As I say, a morbid hatred, and that only, explains it, and it explains it all.”
Maurice was silent, with a sort of despair he felt that so, in its false truth, the situation must rest.
“At all events,” he said, “I don’t suppose that under the circumstances you will really care to accept this invitation of Angela’s.”
“I have accepted it.”
“Grant that it’s a bit indelicate of her to steal such a march on Felicia. It looks like retaliation, you know.”
Mr. Merrick flushed. “I do myself and her the honour to think that it looks like friendship for myself.” Fresh lights were breaking on him every moment. Dewy roses in danger; perilous influences. “I do her the further honour,” he went on, “to believe that Felicia’s rejection of her does not alter her wish to do well by Felicia. For my part I will do my best to atone to her for the cruel affront that she has received at my daughter’s hands.”
Maurice, after the uncomfortable meal was over, almost feared to go to Felicia’s room with his news of defeat. He feared, too, with this new weakness born of his new self-disgust, that her love already had taken on that shadow of suspicion and distrust that he dreaded. He was feeling a sort of giddiness from the hateful pettiness of complexity that enmeshed him. He even imagined he might find her crying in bed, and dinnerless, a horribly effective form of feminine pathos that he had never yet had to face in her. The sight of a tray outside her door reassured him as to the dinner, and it was with a sense of exquisite relief, a sense of dear, sane, commonplace effacing silly doubts that he found her engaged in the very feminine but very unpathetic occupation of tidying her drawers.
She sat—her lap filled with gloves, ribbons and handkerchiefs, and was folding and rearranging, apparently intent on her occupation. Her eyes, as she looked round at him, gave him once more that sense of quiet security. She had faced the situation, seen its triviality, recovered her humour and her calm. Maurice at once saw the situation as only trivial too.
“Well?” Felicia asked, laying a lawn collar in its place.