"Well, of course," said Mrs. Comfrey, "you have had the Hall almost as your second home all your life, and I suppose it's natural that you should think more of it than of the Grange, which is new since you went away. But there's no doubt that the Grange is a more important house now than the Hall, which isn't what it used to be and won't be again until Lord Eldridge succeeds his brother there."
Mr. Comfrey made a deprecatory gesture, and Fred said, rather roughly: "What do I care about all that?"
"What I mean," Mrs. Comfrey hastened to explain herself, "is that with your way to make in business, Lord Eldridge may be very useful to you, and it would be a pity to go against him. Of course, if Hugo hadn't died...! What I mean is that Colonel Eldridge isn't the chief man in Hayslope any longer, and...."
She tailed off ineffectively, but picked herself up to add: "Norman has taken the place that used to be Hugo's. You used to be great friends with Norman."
"I hate Norman," said Fred, "and always did. I dare say Sir William may be of use to me when I get started. I haven't lost sight of that. But I'm not going to pay too high a price for his help. The people at the Hall are my friends, and I'm not going back on them."
He was not offended by his mother's crudities, having nurtured himself on crudities and practised them, all his life. Nor was he going to make her partaker of his secret hopes, or even, if he could help it, give her cause for suspecting his desires. "Sir William was quite decent to me, when I saw him," he said, "and Lady Eldridge has asked me—once—to the Grange since I've been home. But look at the welcome they've given me at the Hall! I don't care much for female society; it's never been in my line. But as long as I'm living quietly here, I like to have the Hall to go to; and I believe Colonel Eldridge likes to see me there. I find plenty to talk to him about. No, I'm not going back on them."
Mrs. Comfrey expressed her appreciation of the nobility of this attitude. It had occurred to her once or twice that Fred might be attracted by Pamela, but the idea had taken no firm hold of her mind. She knew that he was not a lady's man, as he would have expressed it, and besides, the difference in social status between the Eldridges and themselves had always been accepted by her, although she liked to make use of such phrases as, for instance, that the Hall had always been a second house to Fred. The Eldridges, living now in a far more restricted way than before, had come to have less value in her eyes; but they were still a good way above the level upon which Fred would be likely to look when thoughts of matrimony engaged him. His reference now to talks with Colonel Eldridge confirmed her view that he went to the Hall for the reasons that he said he did, and not for the sake of Pamela in particular. But she brought in Pamela's name, just to see how he would take it.
"Pamela being so thick with Norman," she said, "I dare say they will do more to keep the peace than even Lady Eldridge and Mrs. Eldridge."
"I shouldn't count too much on that if I were you," said Fred. "Pamela takes her father's side, and she's quite right too. I don't pretend to know what she thinks about it all, because I haven't asked her, but it's my opinion that she's getting a bit sick of Norman's swank. He's always been a sort of tin god to those girls, and now they're older they're getting tired of taking all their opinions from him. At least that's how it seems to me with Pam."
Mr. Comfrey arose apologetically from the table. "I think I'll leave you, if you don't mind," he said, and as they did not mind, he left them.