"William is careless about Edmund's position here, you say. Very well. He doesn't mean to be, and perhaps Edmund doesn't mean to be dictatorial. But he is, you know, towards William; and considering the high estimation in which William is held, and the kind of people he mixes with, upon equal terms, it is sometimes rather difficult to put up with."
"Isn't all that rather apt to be pressed home upon us, dear? Not by you—I don't mean that. Naturally you are proud of the estimation in which William is held. I should be myself if I were in your place. But Edmund feels, I think, that he might be spared some of William's reminders on that point. In the very letter he wrote about the garden, in which he said that Hayslope couldn't be expected to be of such importance to him as it was to Edmund, he prepared the way by telling him of all the great people he was consorting with—as you say, upon equal terms."
"Which is exactly what I did, when I wrote to you after we had come back from Wellsbury. We were there on equal terms, you know; we didn't dine in the servants' hall."
"Oh, my dear, you mustn't take it in that way, or we may as well leave off talking about it altogether. I didn't show annoyance when you accused Edmund just now of being dictatorial and offensive. Don't let us fall out with one another, or everything is lost."
Lady Eldridge sat more erect in her chair. "We must end it all," she said. "Neither you nor I want it to go on. Let us leave off finding faults in the other side, and admit that both sides have made mistakes. It was unfortunate that William should have wired to Coombe, and sent no message to Edmund at the same time. It's easy enough to see that now; but at the time it didn't occur to me, who was very anxious that offence should not be given, and I'm sure it didn't occur to William. I have told you, anyhow, that his resentment over Edmund's letter had passed over; so that can be cleared out of the way. Edmund need think no more about it. Now let us get William's mistake cleared out of the way. Tell Edmund that it was only carelessness on William's part that led to this new trouble, that I much regret it, now it has been pointed out to me, and that I'm sure William will when he knows the effect it had. Will you do that, Cynthia?"
"Yes, dear, of course I will. Don't let us have any more letters. Let us wait until you come down again next week, and then Edmund and William can talk it all over together, and I'm sure at the end of it they will be as good friends as before."
Lady Eldridge breathed an audible sigh of relief, and smiled. "We have talked pretty plainly to one another," she said. "I am so glad that we can. What a lot of trouble that unfortunate garden plan of ours has made! And it looked as if we were all going to amuse ourselves so much with it."
"Oh, and I hope we shall. Do you know, I think Edmund is as much disappointed at the idea of its being given up as anybody. I haven't told you yet—we seem to have been talking about all sorts of outside things—that he was going to send a long telegram to William asking him to go on with it, even after Coombe had come to him and refused to take his orders."
Lady Eldridge seemed quite at a loss. She stared at her and said quietly: "No, you never told me that. I didn't know that Coombe had been to Edmund at all."