“You are right,” said the General decisively. “It shows a complete want of proper feeling. To be hanging about the public roads like that with the girl! Why, I believe he was about to—pah! It is disgraceful—disgusting and disgraceful, absolutely. Who are these Ingelows, by the way, Eleanor?”
“Oh, I’m sure I don’t know,” she answered loftily, as if the bare suspicion of her knowing anything about them was an imputation to be resented. “I believe they are well-connected and all that. But that anything serious should be the outcome of this would be most deplorable, I should think.”
“It would, indeed. Highly deplorable, and in fact I won’t entertain the idea of anything of the kind. Moreover, if what I hear is true, Roland spends a very great deal of his time in the society of this girl.”
By which remark it will appear that the town of Wandsborough was in no way behind its provincial contemporaries in its passion for gossip.
“He may be only amusing himself. There may be nothing serious in it, after all,” hazarded Mrs Dorrien, her conscience prompting her to try and urge a plea for the absent one. But she could not have struck upon a more unlucky chord.
“Amusing himself! Well, I am surprised at you, Eleanor,” cried the General, firing up. “Amusing himself? And do you remember what came of it on the last occasion of his similarly ‘amusing himself’? Disgrace—pure and simple. Is that a prospect to contemplate with ordinary coolness, I ask you?”
“It strikes me forcibly that this young woman is well able to take care of herself,” was the acid reply. “And I don’t see what we—what you can do in the matter. Roland is different now and, I fear, terribly difficult to deal with.”
“As to what I can do—well, never mind,” answered the General very grimly. “But it seems to me that Roland has not left off his old ways—or, at any rate, is fast returning to them. Why, we shall have another action for breach of promise threatened before we know where we are; these professional people are keen upon the main chance, and that Jesuitical brood above any,” he continued, with a sneer. “And what I now say is that Roland had better be careful—for I will not be disgraced through him a second time with impunity. He has his own means, of course, but if he intends to take up his ultimate position in the county, let him show himself worthy of it.”
Very decisive and stern and uncompromising was the General’s tone and attitude as he concluded this last remark, and his wife, listening, was conscious of a warring tumult of feelings. Yet she dared not sacrifice right and justice to the cause of the one ruling passion of her life—her love for her younger son. So again she spoke in extenuation.
“It is a pity. But he will be going to Ardleigh Court next week—and there’s no telling what change in his fancy his stay there may effect.”