"If all goes well," said the other soberly and decisively, "I think you will be happy. But your Dick, Virginia, is the sort of man who will want to rule, and to rule without question. He is very much in love with you now—that is quite plain, although he is one of those men who hold themselves in. But you won't get your way, my dear, when you are married, unless it is his way too—any more than you did before."
"Oh, my own way! What do I care about that? My way shall be his way. I love him and I can trust him. He is a strong man, and tender too. Toby, I adore him. I will do everything in the world that I can to make him happy. He has raised me out of the dust, and given me to myself again. When I am married to him I shall forget all the pain and misery. It's a new life he is giving me, Toby, and the old unhappy life will fall from me and be as if it had never been."
"You are expecting a great deal, Virginia," said Miss Dexter; "I hope some part of it will be realised."
CHAPTER VII
THE SQUIRE PUTS HIS FOOT DOWN
Kencote was three hours' journey from London by a fast train, and it had always been the custom of the sons of the family—those of them whose avocations made it necessary for them at any time to live in town—to come down whenever they pleased, to spend a night or a few nights, without announcing their arrival. Their rooms were there ready for them. Kencote was their home. Dick or Humphrey, and, in the days before he was married, Walter, would often walk into the house unexpectedly and go upstairs and dress without any one but the servants knowing they were there until dinner-time. The Squire liked them to come and go in that way. It seemed to give him, in his retired, bucolic life, a tie with the world. He would always give them a hearty welcome, even if he had to object to something they had done, or had left undone, before they left again.
It was Humphrey who arrived on this Saturday afternoon, reaching Kencote by the half-past four train, and walking up from the station and into the morning-room, for his cup of tea. The Squire's greeting was a shade less hearty than it would have been in the case of his other sons. Humphrey had given him a good deal of trouble in the way of money. It is true that there had never been any big catastrophe, no sudden demand for a large sum to meet a debt of honour, from racing or cards, as fathers were sometimes confronted with by extravagant sons. Humphrey was too cautious to run those sorts of risks. The Squire, perhaps, would have preferred that the demands upon him should have come in that way rather than from the constant, rather cold-blooded exceeding of an allowance which he told himself, and Humphrey, was as large as any younger son had a right to expect, and a good deal larger than most of them got. Humphrey did not deny this. He simply said, whenever he did ask his father for more money, that he had not been able to do on it, but if his father would clear off his debts for him and give him a fresh start, he would try to do on it for the future. He had made the endeavour three times, and each time with less success than before, for the debts had been bigger. And now the Squire was getting angry about it. It had always been the same. Humphrey's debts after he had left Cambridge had been about twice as large as Dick's, although Dick had been Master of the Drag and had had expenses that Humphrey had not. Walter had left Oxford with no debts at all. And since their University days, Humphrey had actually had more money than either of the others, although Dick was the eldest son and a considerable sum had been paid to buy Walter his practice.
Now it was not the Squire's way to bear malice or to let any annoyance rankle when once it had been met and dealt with. In the ordinary course he would have expressed himself very strongly and felt very strongly on the subject when one of Humphrey's periodical crises of debt was disclosed to him, but when he had so relieved his mind he would have paid up and forgotten all about it. He had done so the first time, and even the second, after a rather stronger explosion. It was the third, now nearly two years ago, which had rankled; and the reason was not only that Humphrey, as seemed quite obvious, was living in just such a way as had brought him to exceed his income and get into trouble before, with the consequence that a new crisis and a new demand would probably arise before long. It was so much in the air that the Squire was continually calling the gods to witness that he was not going to pay any more of Humphrey's debts. But he would not have felt so sore, when he did think about it, if it had not been for Humphrey's attitude towards him in particular, and towards Kencote and all that it represented in general.
The fact was that Humphrey, from the serene heights of his career as a very smart young man about town, patronised them. It is to be supposed that he could not help it, that it was an attitude which he would have corrected if he had been aware of it, for it was quite certain that, when once his father became aware of it, it would not help him in any plan he might have to make for further pecuniary assistance. The Squire merely had a feeling of irritation against Humphrey, which slumbered while he was away and always became sharper during his somewhat rare visits to Kencote. It was not yet formulated, but was nearer to getting to a head every time they came together. The young man, if he had had an adviser, might have been told that if he acted in such a way as to bring it to a head, it would be time for him to look out.