Laura joined him in ten minutes' time, neatly dressed, gloved, and veiled, her hair smoothed—it had never been rough so far as Lawrence could observe—her complexion regulated by Catherine's powder puff. "Are you better?" said Lawrence, examining her anxiously: "able to walk as far as the vicarage?"
"The vicarage?"
"Wharton's too far off. You're dead tired: You'll have to lie down and keep quiet. Isabel will look after you." It speaks to the complete overthrow of Lawrence's ideas that for the last hour he had not recollected Isabel's existence. "And we shall have to wait till Bernard raises the siege: one can't bawl explanations through a keyhole. Besides, I must wire to Lucian." He slipped his hand under her arm. "Would you like this good girl of yours to come with you?"
"I will come, madam, directly I've fetched my hat," said Catherine eagerly. "You must have some one to look after you, and your hair never brushed and all."
But Laura shook her head, Catherine must not defy her master. "If you want to please me," she said not without humour "—I can't help it, Lawrence—try to look after Major Clowes. You had better not go near him yourself, because as you know he isn't very pleased with me just now, but see that Mrs. Fryar sends him in a nice lunch and ask Barry to try to get him to eat it. I ordered some oysters to come this morning, and Major Clowes will enjoy those when he won't touch anything else."
Catherine watched her lady up the road with a disappointed eye. It was a tame conclusion to a promising adventure. Although respectably brought up, her sympathies were all with Captain Hyde: she had foreseen herself, the image of regretful discretion, sacrificing her lifelong principles to escort Mrs. Clowes to Brighton, or Switzerland, or that place where they had the little horses that Mr. Duval made such a 'mysterious joke about—it would have been amusing to do foreign parts with Mr. Duval. But when Laura took the turning to the vicarage Catherine was invaded by a creeping chill of doubt. Was it possible that Captain Hyde was not Mrs. Clowes's lover after all?
"I know which I'd choose," she said to Gordon. "I've no patience with the Major. Such a way to behave! and my poor lady with the patience of an angel, putting up and putting up— No man's worth it, that's what I say."
"Well, it is a bit thick," said Gordon: "calling his own wife a—"
"Mr. Gordon!"
The son of the Clyde was a contentious young man, and a jealous one. "You didn't seem to mind when the French chap was talking about a fille de joy. What d'ye suppose a fille de joy is in English? but there's some of us can do no wrong."