Mrs Hamps was kind, but unusually firm in her tone; which reached a sort of benevolent severity.
“Your father had such high hopes of you. Has—I should say. He couldn’t imagine what on earth possessed you to write such a letter. And I’m sure I can’t. I hope you’re sorry. If you’d seen your father last night you would be, I’m sure.”
“But look here, auntie,” Edwin defended himself, sneezing and wiping his nose; and he spoke of his desire. Surely he was entitled to ask, to suggest! A son could not be expected to be exactly like his father. And so on.
No! no! She brushed all that aside. She scarcely listened to it.
“But think of the business! And just think of your father’s feelings!”
Edwin spoke no more. He saw that she was absolutely incapable of putting herself in his place. He could not have explained her attitude by saying that she had the vast unconscious cruelty which always goes with a perfect lack of imagination; but this was the explanation. He left her, saddened by the obvious conclusion that his auntie, whom he had always supported against his sisters, was part author of his undoing. She had undoubtedly much strengthened his father against him. He had a gleam of suspicion that his sisters had been right, and he wrong, about Mrs Hamps. Wonderful, the cruel ruthless insight of girls—into some things!
Nine.
Not till Saturday did the atmosphere of the Clayhanger household resume the normal. But earlier than that Edwin had already lost his resentment. It disappeared with his cold. He could not continue to bear ill-will. He accepted his destiny of immense disappointment. He shouldered it. You may call him weak or you may call him strong. Maggie said nothing to him of the great affair. What could she have said? And the affair was so great that even Clara did not dare to exercise upon it her peculiar faculties of ridicule. It abashed her by its magnitude.
On Saturday Darius said to his son, good-humouredly—