These were Mrs. Merrick’s thoughts while she sorted the papers and remarked upon the rapid friendship. “You know,” she said, laying the one magazine upon the other, “that he is very poor. I fancy he has no settled income at all.”
It had come, the inevitable grunt in the midst of the pastoral. Even in her displeasure, Felicia could feel some amusement in the sudden simile that suggested Aunt Kate as the unobserved pig in its pig-sty among the orchards and rose-hedges where she had been happily strolling. She could almost see a flexible, inquiring snout pushing between the palings, above it the scrutiny of an observant eye. The simile so softened the displeasure that her voice had all its indolent mildness as she asked, “What has his poverty got to do with his friendship, Aunt Kate?” After all, it was easy to lean over the palings, and with a stick, indulgently to scratch the creature’s back.
“Ah! nothing—nothing at all, no doubt, especially since it is said that he is all but engaged to Lady Angela. He has admired her for years.”
“And what then? Are any of his friendships a menace to his engagement do you think?”
“Of course not, Felicia. You jump at such odd conclusions. And I did not say that he was engaged, merely that he had admired her for years. It’s improbable that Lady Angela would accept him.”
“At all events, a friendship of two days’ standing can hardly be affected by anything you may or may not have heard. You mustn’t jump at odd conclusions, Aunt Kate.” Felicia could not repress this as she put her book under her arm and stepped from the window on to the lawn. In spite of the lightness of her tone, the grunt had come as an ugly interruption in a melodious mood. To hear such things did affect the two days’ friendship, though she did not believe them. She had known him for only two days, but the two days had been hers so exclusively that any other “admiration” must mean very little. Not that the two days meant much to either of them, she assured herself. They had only strolled among rose-hedges. A pity, though, that the pig-sty had to be faced.
On the lawn coming towards her were Angela, Maurice and Geoffrey. They personified the new life into which she seemed to have entered. To see them together pushed her back once more into the place of spectator. Felicia had time to recognize her own hurt and almost angry mood as she approached them and smiled at them in passing. But Angela, with a winning hand held out, detained her. “You are so fond of walking. Won’t you come with us? Just about the grounds?” she said. She drew Felicia’s hand within her arm. “I am not very strong, so I can’t make magnificent expeditions as you do—Maurice tells me—with him before breakfast. But even a little walk has twice the value if it’s a talking walk, don’t you think?”
“I suppose it has,” said Felicia, feeling a slight confusion as she walked between them.
“Though a silent walk, with a companion one cares for, has even more, perhaps,” Angela added. “Don’t you love silence?”