Viola came in as he was standing looking at them. He thought she looked more beautiful than ever, as she greeted him with a smile and a blush. Her entrance into the room seemed to bring light with it, and softness and charm. Its commonplace features sank into the background; the flowers became of more importance than anything, and the books and the music.
Wilbraham had seen Viola in a pretty simple frock suitable for the country, but although her clothes now had the same air of simplicity to his unsophisticated eyes, they were even to him something exceptional. One would not have expected a girl who lived in that room to enter it dressed as she was. The calling in which she earned her living stood her in good stead. Wilbraham had not been told what it was, and had the idea of her doing something or other with a typewriter. He thought that the figure she presented was owing to her taste, and did not know that it would also have meant a good deal of money if there had been nothing more than her taste to account for it. What he did feel was that she might have entered any rich room in London as she was and been taken for granted as belonging to it. She was worthy of Harry even in this respect, which would probably weigh more with the world even than it weighed with him.
"Father will be in in about half an hour," she said. "You will stay and have some tea with us, won't you? I'm sure he will be glad to see you."
He had been looking at her searchingly. She gave him the impression of being older than when he had seen her at Royd, a woman full grown and no longer half a child, though the delicacy and freshness of youth still marked her. She had, in fact, ceased to arrange her hair as still growing girls wear it, and there was some to him indefinable difference in her clothes.
He said he would stay until her father came in, and she motioned him to her father's chair, and sat down in her own on the other side of the fire, facing him.
She seemed to wait for him to speak first. He could tell nothing by her manner, which was smiling and self-possessed, though her self-possession was not more than is becoming to a young girl, secure in her youth and charm.
"I suppose you know that Harry has left home to enlist in the army," he said.
Her colour deepened a little upon the mention of her lover's name, but she did not shrink from his gaze, and the faint smile was still on her lips as she said: "I thought that he might, although he didn't say he would." So of course she knew, and had been prepared for the question.
"Probably he had not quite made up his mind by the time you left Royd," he said.
She did not reply to this, and he thought he could see that she had decided not to admit anything, probably under Harry's directions. Again there came to him the sense of dislike at interfering with what Harry had decided. He could not fence with her to make her say what Harry didn't want her to say, or force her to say that she could not answer his questions. She was frank and innocent. It would seem an impertinence to put her into the position of defending a reticence.