"If I do that, the rest won't come later; it won't come at all. Dick has kicked over the traces, and I'm to take his place—to a certain extent. I don't want to think too much about all that, but you force me to say it. You understand the situation well enough if you'd give your mind to it. I don't want to bury myself in the country all the year round any more than you would; but, hang it! isn't it worth making some sacrifice for a time? Besides, it's such nonsense to talk as if living in the country, and living comfortably too, within three hours of London, were the same thing as going off to Siberia or somewhere. Anyhow, we're going to live at Kencote. I'm game and Susan's game. We don't ask you to come and live with us."
"Now you're positively insulting," said Lady Aldeburgh, entirely recovering her good-humour, for this was the way she liked to be treated by good-looking young men. It implied that she appeared as young as she felt. "Of course if you have made up your mind to hoe turnips for the rest of your life, you naturally wouldn't expect me to come and hoe them with you, and I shouldn't come if you did. The question is, will Susan be happy hoeing turnips? That's what I have to look at."
"I dare say you will be pleased to do an occasional week-end's hoeing," replied Humphrey. "And as for Susan, I've already told you she's ready to hoe as long as is necessary. Please don't upset her about it. We are going to eat our bread and butter quite contentedly for a few years, and we shall get the jam by and by. If you put your oar in and try and upset things, we shan't get nearly so much bread and butter, and we shall miss the jam altogether. After all, it's a question for us to decide; and we've already decided. We're going to be a good little boy and girl, and if all goes well, by and by we shall be little county magnates. I believe that's the proper expression."
"What is your father going to do?" asked Lady Aldeburgh. "Let's put it quite plainly, as we are talking confidentially. Is he going to make an eldest son of you? Is Dick finally out of the way? I know he's going to marry Virginia Dubec in spite of everything. Does your father still refuse to see him—or to see her, which is more to the point, for I'm not a cat like some women, and I'll say this, that I believe if he were to see her she would get round him; for she's a beautiful creature and could turn any man round her little finger if she cared to try."
"She won't have a chance of trying with him," replied Humphrey. "You may make your mind easy as to that. As for Dick, I suppose he's seeing him at this moment. He was going down to Kencote this afternoon."
"What! Oh, then they've made it up?"
"No, they haven't. Neither side budges. Dick is going to marry Virginia, as you say, and Dick's father has sworn to leave all he can away from him if he does. Both of them will keep their word, for they're both as obstinate as the devil. But they are going to patch up a sort of peace, and I'm not altogether sorry. Dick hasn't behaved particularly well to me, and I should be a humbug if I pretended that I wanted him to get back what's now coming my way. But I don't want him to feel left out in the cold altogether."
"How very sweet and forgiving! Are you sure that he won't persuade your father to change his mind?"
"He won't try."
"How do you know that?"