She thought for a moment, and said with slightly heightened colour: "You are bigger than Edmund. If he has made a mistake, you can afford not to make the same mistake."
His face changed at that. "You always put me right," he said, with a smile at her. "Yes, of course. Poor old fellow! He's had a lot to try him. He doesn't get out into the world as I do, and of course he broods over his troubles. Any little thing upsets him."
She smiled at him in her turn. "That's how I'm sure it is," she said. "If he does object to this garden plan, it isn't much to give it up, is it? Just a little extra amusement, as you said."
He laughed, rather ruefully. "I don't like giving up something that I've set in hand," he said. "But if it will placate my respected brother—"
"Perhaps he won't want you to, if you return him a soft answer."
"I'll do that all right. If a thing's worth doing at all it's worth doing well. Besides, you've blown away my annoyance, and, after all, it's more in accordance with my nature to be generous than to be resentful—don't you think?"
That was just what she did think. He was quick-tempered, but she had had abundant experience of the quick revulsion of feeling that came to him when his generosity was appealed to, and loved him for it. Her own impulsions drove her upon a more level course. He had no idea of the anger that his brother's letter had aroused in her mind, that had held her even while she was pleading for him, and that held her still, when by her prompting he had chased his away from him. Her accusation of jealousy had been the only sign of it in her speech, and she had entirely agreed with him when he had stigmatized that as a most unworthy feeling under the circumstances that had called it forth. It had cost her an effort to insist upon the ties that held the brothers together. To her mind, Colonel Eldridge, with his narrow outlook, and his claims of superiority, was undeserving of the affection which her husband constantly showed towards him, and showed little enough of it in return, though it was true that he relied upon his brother, and made use of him.
Still, when she was alone and thought it all over, she was glad that she had spoken as she had, putting aside her own feelings, and playing, as she always could, upon his, which were so large and generous. There was Cynthia to be thought of, who was putting a brave face upon the restrictions that had so marred her life, and who expressed only to her, because she was her best-loved friend, what they meant to her. And there were the dear children, whom she loved, and the more because she had no daughter of her own. No, it would never have done to allow a breach to open, as might well have happened, if Edmund's crabbed obstinacy had been answered in the way it deserved. They were too much bound up together at Hayslope not to make all allowances for one another, even where no allowance was rightly due. Besides, the path of tolerance was always the right path, though it might not be easy to take it.
To Sir William, that path had its allurements. His nature was generous and he recognized it. It was with a glow of self-gratulation that he sat down after luncheon to answer his brother's letter; and he enjoyed the art with which he brought to bear upon it, so that his meaning should be made plain, and also his large-minded tolerance.
Beginning "My dear Edmund," he first of all wrote fully about the affair in which he was interesting himself on behalf of his brother. A good deal depended upon the way in which he dealt with it, and he showed that his interests were deeply engaged. In fact, something had already been done, for the Government Department concerned was that of which Mr. Vincent, one of his fellow guests at Wellsbury, was the head.