But at this point his reasoning faculties failed him. If she wanted Wray and if Wray wanted her, there would, of course, be but one thing for him to do. It was that one thing itself which remained elusive or obscure, dodging, disturbing, and defying him. He could find a means to give Jennie her freedom, or he could take her by brute force, or, in certain circumstances, he could dismiss her as not worthy of his love. The trouble was that he couldn't see himself doing any of the three; and yet if what seemed to be true was true, he couldn't see himself as doing the other thing.
The modus vivendi, like all other arrangements of its kind, was therefore safe and convenient. It settled nothing; but it was what the term implied, a way of living. It was not an ideal way of living, or a way that shielded anyone from comment; but it was a way.
As for comment, it reached Bob only indirectly, and not oftener than every now and then. Perhaps it came in as pointed a form as it ever assumed for him in a seemingly chance remark from the chauffeur's wife, Mrs. Gull. It was not a chance remark, for the neat, pretty, thin-lipped, pinched-face Englishwoman who had passed all her life "in service" didn't make ill-considered observations.
"I suppose we shall see the young lady down, sir, some day soon?"
"Yes, some day soon," Bob replied, cautiously, getting ready in the hall to go to town.
"To remain?"
It was all summed up in those three syllables—all the gossip on the Collingham estate, and on all the estates at Marillo, not to go farther afield.
"Not to remain just yet," Bob answered, judiciously. "Mrs. Follett isn't well, and Mrs. Collingham has two younger sisters whom she has to take care of."
That this explanation was not adequate he knew; and yet it was an explanation. "It certainly do seem queer," Mrs. Gull observed to the gardener and the gardener's wife, in a company that included Gull; and Gull, who was from Somersetshire, replied, "It most zure and zertainly do."
But on the Sunday afternoon two weeks after Bob's return "the young lady" paid her visit to Collingham Lodge, accompanied by her mother and two sisters.