In the drawing-room the last people were going, Mrs. Cuthbert among them. “I hear your father is coming to live with you, Felicia,” she said.
“Yes. It is too lonely for him now.”
“He won’t be able to let the house, I fear.”
“For the present the house is to be shut up, and we may go down to it for week-ends.”
“It is always a rather dangerous experiment, you know, Felicia, a third person between a young couple.”
“We must risk it,” Felicia laughed.
When, after this final grunt, her aunt had gone, she and Geoffrey were alone.
He was standing at the window, and she joined him there and looked out at the silver river with a slow russet sail upon it. The sense of peace and confidence, felt on the day of their last meeting, was with her; but it was more easy to speak with perfect openness since she need not speak of themselves.
She repressed the impulsive “How she dislikes me!” that might seem to claim his sympathy for her painful part in the recent little drama; she need never claim his sympathy; and a curious sense of loyalty to Angela made her substitute, “How I dislike her. You must know it, so I may as well say it.”
“That explains her unpleasantness, you think?” Geoffrey’s voice was as detached and impartial as if he were questioning the validity of a dubious clause in a dubious bill.