"As to Claude, you and he must settle your own matters. I wash my hands of the whole transaction from this hour, supposing that common-sense will triumph at last, and reconcile your differences.
"Yours as ever, truly and devotedly,
"BASIL BAINROTHE."
I did not answer this note—I could not discreetly, although I tried to do so several times. I could not conquer sufficiently my deep disgust of his insupportable behavior to respond kindly, at that time, to any overture of Mr. Bainrothe's, nor did I wish to write one rude word to him in connection with so delicate a subject as that of our late discussion.
He came no more until after Evelyn's return, and then only on necessary business; inquiring for her alone, and holding on such occasions secret conclaves with her invariably in the library. Whenever we met casually, however, whether in the street or my own house, he was polite and easy in his deportment, even gracious.
With Claude it was otherwise; he avoided me sedulously, and, although I have reason to think he met and joined Evelyn frequently, and even by appointment in her long walks, he never called to see her or paid her open attentions. Yet I found that he had followed my counsels.
A day or two before he sailed for Copenhagen to join the legation in Denmark, an exception to this rule of avoidance was made by both father and son, who came in as had been usual with them in other days, informally, in the evening.
This was Claude's farewell visit—a very unpleasant necessity evidently on his part. I was unconstrained in the cordiality with which I received both his father and himself—for it was heart-felt on this occasion. Old feelings came back to me so vividly that night, and my own dear father seemed so visibly recalled by the presence once more of our unbroken circle, that I lost sight, for a season, of my wrongs and sufferings in the memory of the past, and broke temporarily through the cloud that oppressed me and dimmed my existence.
I saw Mr. Bainrothe gazing at me several times, in the course of his visit, with an expression of interest and surprise.
He had expected very different manifestations, no doubt, and he told Evelyn afterward that "no woman of thirty could have carried off matters with a higher hand than did that chit of sixteen, Miriam Monfort."