“I never dreamt it would come to that!” he said at last. “I can’t think how you two made it up. I never saw you much together.”
His feelings were contradictory, I could see. He was not pleased—and yet again he was pleased.
“You will take the pas of Aunt Mina,” he remarked. “Won’t she be furious? And, of course, in a way it’s a grand match. The Falkland family is as old as the hills, and as proud as Lucifer, but I could never cotton to Falkland, he has such strained ideas of honour. You must never discuss a woman in public, and all that sort of old-fashioned twaddle. I think you are right to keep the engagement dark as he is not here. Envious people might say that the whole thing only existed in your imagination, and, as I have already observed, you and he were never very chummy—although I now remember that he used to ride up to church here on Sunday evenings, and always sit where he could see you.”
The news of Captain Falkland’s sudden departure for England made quite a stir at the club. Mrs. Soames assured me that everyone was talking about it and saying all manner of nice things about him. In spite of his rather slow manner it appeared that he had a very active brain. The general and Mrs. Graham were completely lost without him, as he had been invaluable to both, as a smart officer and a tactful A.D.C., never mixing uncongenial people or sending guests into dinner in wrong seniority and thereby causing much heart-burning and enmity.
As I did not appear at the club for two or three days, having a bad cold, I was honoured by a visit of inspection from Mrs. Potter. She came ostensibly to see Mrs. Soames, and dropped in on me on the way in her fine motor-car. She found me sitting in the veranda with Kipper on my lap, and I think the spectacle startled her not a little.
As I ushered her into the drawing-room she said,
“As I was up in this part of the world I thought I would just look in on you. I heard at the club that you were rather seedy.”
“Only a cold and a little touch of fever; I shall be well by to-morrow.”
“Is that all that ails you?” and she looked at me with a malicious glance and added: “Someone told me that it was a serious heart attack!”
I laughed. I think my laugh annoyed her, for she said: