True; besides which, the mere chances of that hospitality without which Marillo could not be Marillo would throw together any two young people minded so to come. In such spacious freedom, an ineligible young professor could touch the hem of the garment of a banker's daughter without forcing the issue in any way.
With the conversation between Miss Edith Collingham and Professor Ernest Ayling we have almost nothing to do. It is enough to say that, from the rapidity of the young pair's movements and the animation of their gestures, Mrs. Collingham judged that they were very much in earnest. Looking out from what was known as the terrace drawing-room, she was convinced that no two young people could talk like that without an understanding between them.
She had been led to the terrace drawing-room by the sound of voices and the fact that it was the end of the house toward the Sidebottoms' premises. Against a background of cannas, dahlias, and gladioli, with maples flinging their flame and crimson up into a golden sky, the two figures passing and repassing the long French windows were little more than silhouettes. Such scraps of their phrases as drifted her way told her that they were up to nothing more criminal than settling the affairs of a distracted universe, but she had no intention that they should settle anything. At the appropriate moment she decided to make her presence felt.
In doing this she was supported by the knowledge that her presence was a presence to be felt impressively. Of her profile, it was mere economy of effort to say that it was like a cameo, aristocratically regular and clear-cut. Her hair, prematurely white, lent itself to the simplest dressing, too classic to be a mode. A figure, of which it would have been vulgar to use the word "plump," carried the most sumptuous costumes with regal suitability. Studied, polished, and perfected, she wore her finish as a mask that concealed the lioness mother which she was.
It was the lioness mother who confronted the young couple as they turned in their promenade. Edith alone came forward. Her professor being given a bow so cold that it was tantamount to a dismissal, as a dismissal was obliged to take it. Within a minute, he was down both the flowered terraces and out of sight behind the lilac bush.
Mrs. Collingham's enunciation had the exquisite precision of the rest of her personality.
"I thought I asked you, dear, not to encourage that impossible young man to come here."
"But I can't stop his coming without encouragement, can I, mother darling?"
Mother darling moved to the edge of the flagged pavement, looking down on the blaze of summer's final fireworks. On each of the two lower terraces fountains played, their back drops falling on the water lillies in the basins. It being the moment for a strong appeal, she sounded the first note without turning round.
"Edith, I wonder if you have the faintest idea of a mother's ambitions for her children?"