"Very well;—so be it. But you will understand I could not be in London without coming and asking after them." Then the Colonel at last took his leave, and Mr. Outhouse was left to his solitude and his sermons.
Mrs. Outhouse was very angry when she heard of the visit. "Men of that sort," she said, "think it a fine thing, and talk about it. I believe the poor girl is as innocent as I am, but he isn't innocent. He likes it."
"'It is easier,'" said Mr. Outhouse solemnly, "'for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.'"
"I don't know that he is a rich man," said Mrs. Outhouse; "but he wouldn't have come here if he had been honest."
Mrs. Trevelyan was told of the visit, and simply said that of course it was out of the question that she should have seen Colonel Osborne. Nevertheless she seemed to think it quite natural that he should have called, and defended him with some energy when her aunt declared that he had been much to blame. "He is not bound to obey Mr. Trevelyan because I am," said Emily.
"He is bound to abstain from evil doing," said Mrs. Outhouse; "and he oughtn't to have come. There; let that be enough, my dear. Your uncle doesn't wish to have it talked about." Nevertheless it was talked about between the two sisters. Nora was of opinion that Colonel Osborne had been wrong, whereas Emily defended him. "It seems to me to have been the most natural thing in life," said she.
Had Colonel Osborne made the visit as Sir Marmaduke's friend, feeling himself to be an old man, it might have been natural. When a man has come to regard himself as being, on the score of age, about as fit to be a young lady's lover as though he were an old woman instead of an old man,—which some men will do when they are younger even than was Colonel Osborne,—he is justified in throwing behind him as utterly absurd the suspicions of other people. But Colonel Osborne cannot be defended altogether on that plea.