“I’ve dived off that spot a hundred times. I’d no idea there were weeds. I’ve never known weeds to be there. I’ll send down one of the men directly after lunch and have it seen to. Really I feel a sense of responsibility.” The Captain went on with an air of added self-justification, “Though, of course, I’m not responsible. I couldn’t have known about the weeds.”
Weeds or no weeds, Odd could not forgive him for the child’s fright, though he replied good-humoredly to the invitation to the house.
“Mrs. Archinard would have called on Mrs. Odd before this, but my wife is an invalid—never leaves the house or grounds. She sees a good deal of Miss Odd. I knew your father myself as well as one may know such a recluse; spent some pleasant hours in his library—magnificent library you’ve got. Peculiarly satisfactory it must be, as you go in for that sort of thing. Won’t you come in to tea this afternoon? And Mrs. Odd? Miss Odd? I was sorry to find them out when I called the other day. I haven’t seen Mrs. Odd. I don’t see her at church.”
“No; we have hardly settled down to our duties yet, and my wife only got back from the Riviera a few weeks ago.”
“Well, I hope we shall keep you at Allersley now that your wanderjahre are over, and that you are married. I was wandering myself during your boyhood. My brother bought the place, you know; liked the country here immensely. Poor old Jack! Only lived ten years to enjoy it—and died a bachelor—luckily for me. But we’ve missed one another, haven’t we? Neighbors too. I have seen Mrs. Odd—at a dance in London, Lady Bartlebury’s, I remember; and I remember that she was the prettiest girl in the room. Miss Castleton—the beautiful Alicia Castleton.”
Miss Castleton’s fame had indeed been so wide that the title was quite public property, and the Captain’s reminiscent tone of admiration most natural and allowable. Odd accepted the invitation to tea, waded back round the hedge, gathered up his basket and rod, and made his way up through the park to Allersley Manor.
CHAPTER II
MRS. ODD and Miss Odd, Peter’s eldest and unmarried sister, were having an only half-veiled altercation when Odd, after putting on dry clothes, came into the morning-room just before lunch. Miss Odd sat by the open French window cutting the leaves of a review. There were several more reviews on the table beside her, and with her eyeglasses and fine, severe profile, she gave one the impression of a woman who would pass her mornings over reviews and disagree with most of them for reasons not frivolous.
Mrs. Odd lay back in an easy-chair. She was very remarkable looking. The adjective is usually employed in a sense rather derogatory to beauty pure and simple, yet Mrs. Odd’s dominant characteristic was beauty, pure and simple; beauty triumphantly certain of remark, and remarkable in the sense that no one could fail to notice her, as when one had noticed her it was impossible not to find her beautiful. It was not a loveliness that admitted of discussion. In desperate rebellion against an almost tame conformity, a rash person might assert that to him her type did not appeal; but the type was resplendent. Perhaps too resplendent; in this extreme lay the only hope of escape from conformity. The long figure in the uniform-like commonplace of blue serge and shirt-waist was almost too uncommonplace in elegance of outline; the white hand too slender, too pink as to finger-tips and polished as to nails; the delicate scarlet splendor of her mouth, the big wine-colored eyes, too dazzling.
Mrs. Odd’s red-brown hair was a glory, a burnished, well-coiffed, well-brushed glory; it rippled, coiled, and curved about her head. Her profile was bewildering—lazily, sweetly petulant. “Is this the face?” a man might murmur on first seeing Alicia.