The love of a boy and a girl! Oh, it was a touching thing, when they were a boy and a girl like Harry and Viola. Wilbraham rejected then and there any suggestion that might have come from his dinted experience that Viola was not Harry's mate in innocence and purity. He had seen her for himself. All that he knew of her father, all that he did not know of her origin and upbringing, could go by the board. His heart spoke for her, his sentiment went out to her. He was a poor, weak, self-indulgent creature, he told himself, but he did recognize goodness and purity when he saw it. Besides, what else could have attracted Harry? He was doubly armed there.
But Lady Brent wouldn't see it like that. The outside resemblances between what had happened to Harry's father and what was now happening to Harry would be too strong for her. She would think that all for which she had worked and sacrificed herself through long years would be destroyed if Harry was caught in the snares of love at this early age. She would put her spoke in. She would use all the wisdom of which she was capable—and she had shown great wisdom in the past—in putting a stop to it; but at least she would try to put a stop to it.
And then what would happen? Wilbraham saw a sharp contest between her and Harry, and, with the deeper vision that had come to him of the boy's character, he felt it to be extremely doubtful whether Lady Brent would win. There would be a state of open conflict, and Harry would be more firmly fixed in his courses than before.
Boy and girl attachments—they faded out. It was absurd to suppose that at seventeen Harry could have any idea of marriage, however much he and Viola might have played with the overwhelming bliss of some day being always together. He was not as his father had been; he would marry, when the time came for him to do so, with a full sense of his responsibility. And Viola was not like Harry's mother. No, the danger of a hasty secret marriage could be ruled out; it was an affront to both of them to think of it.
Harry would go his way, and Viola would go hers. Their ways lay naturally very far apart. They might write to each other for a time, and they might see one another occasionally; but what would it matter? At the end of four years, when Harry would be twenty-one, it was most probable that this almost childish love passage would be forgotten, or exist only as a fragrant memory.
Wilbraham divined in himself at this point a faint regret at the thought of this beautiful boy and girl ceasing to love one another. Viola had made a deep impression upon him.
At any rate, there was no harm in it. Probably there was even good in it. Harry would soon be leaving home, to plunge straight into a world for which Wilbraham had sometimes thought that his training had been a dangerous preparation. With this innocent early love of his to accompany him, he would be armed against many of the temptations to which sheltered youth does succumb when the shelter has at last been withdrawn.
Wilbraham felt a sense of relief at having come to these conclusions. He was sure they were right. Harry had conquered. He should be left free to sun himself in the glamour of his boy's courtship. How pretty it was to think of them billing and cooing like two young turtle-doves in their leafy fastnesses! Wilbraham's lettered thoughts flew to Theocritus, and he murmured soft Greek words to himself, but decided that there would be a delicacy about the wooing of these children that could not be matched in Sicilian idylls. He rose from his seat and made his way towards the house. He had decided. He would leave them alone.
But as he dressed for dinner in a leisurely way, lingering often at his window to enjoy the scents and sounds of the garden dusk, the thought of Lady Brent once more occurred to him and his face grew thoughtful again.
Hadn't he rather left her out of account? If the decision had been so easy to come to, and seemed so right now it was made, wouldn't she be quite as capable of making it as he had been?