‘If you make her like this one by the end of a year—’
‘O, hush, Arthur!’
Percy hastened from the room. Violet could not recover from her astonishment. ‘Could Lord Martindale actually have consented?’
‘Makes no difficulty at all. He has grown wiser since poor John’s time. I have taught him one may be trusted to choose for oneself.’
‘But your aunt?’
‘Ah! there is nothing she hates like a Fotheringham; but she has not the power over my father she once had. She will have to take up with us for very spite. But what they are to live on I do not know, unless my father keeps them.’
‘I thought he was heir to a baronetcy.’
‘Yes; but there is a half-witted son of old Sir Antony in the way, who will keep Percy out of the property for the term of his natural life, as well as if he was a wise man.’
After luncheon, Violet had a message from John to ask for a visit from her. She found him on the sofa in the sitting-room, apparently oppressed and uncomfortable; but he looked brightened by her entrance, and pleased when she offered to stay and read to him.
‘The very thing I have been figuring to myself as most agreeable. I don’t want to talk or think. I have been overdoing both.’