“Oh well,” Ordith thought in excuse for himself, “she’s got to live either with you or with me.”
V
Margaret said nothing to Hugh of what he had seen, nor did he question her. She made no attempt to argue with her father, for there was no arguing against what he called his “plain statement of facts, spoken for her own good.” By this she was given to understand that, in rejecting Ordith, she had acted with rash impetuosity which, on account of her youth, her father was ready to pardon. Next time—and she smiled at the authoritative tone in which he spoke of this second opportunity—next time, of course, she would revise her decision. As for her having forbidden Ordith to see her again—that was ridiculous, childish.
“In any case,” Mr. Fane-Herbert said, “you understand that he is a friend of mine, and the business we are conducting is most important—of the utmost importance. Therefore he must come to my house. You do not intend to shut yourself in your room, I suppose?”
The incident of that afternoon was not afterwards mentioned. Mr. Fane-Herbert would neither himself remember that Margaret had refused Ordith nor would he allow others to take the fact into account. After a decent interval Ordith began to visit the house again. He met Margaret so often, and with such smiling tact, that some kind of reconciliation became inevitable. She met him first in her father’s presence. The encounter was unexpected; there was no retreat; and it was impossible to pretend that she was unaware of Ordith’s presence. Her choice was between a scene, in which her father’s intervention was probable, and a recognition friendly enough to make complete estrangement impossible in future. And she shrank instinctively from such a scene.
The absence of any apparent breach in his sister’s relations with Ordith caused Hugh to assume that, though some difficulty might have arisen, the incident he had witnessed was at least a prelude to the engagement of which Ordith had spoken. For long he said nothing of this to John, but at last the rumour which Aggett had put into circulation made an explanation inevitable.
“They say Ordith is engaged to Margaret,” John said. “Is that true?”
“She has told me nothing of it,” Hugh answered.
“But you know——?”
“I saw——”