"A clergyman?" echoed the old lady, clutching at her vinaigrette. "A clergyman?" she repeated. "Thank you, my dear, but I should find a clergyman in my bedroom as uncomfortable as I should find a large black retriever dog, and about as useful. I'm afraid that my wandering conversation has given you the impression that my mind is wandering. I thought I had made it perfectly plain that I considered the vision of my father an hallucination."
Mary begged her grandmother's pardon, and after a short silence the old lady inquired graciously after the children.
"What a pity," she said, "that Richard will not become Sir Richard when I die. I am sorry now that I allowed Barton to be sold. I think, had I known how much of a Flower I was going to have for a great-grandson, I should not have done so. However, regrets are useless. You are happy, are you not?"
"Why, yes, Grandmamma. What makes you ask that?"
The old lady's voice was sounding more remote every minute that she went on talking, and the furtive November dusk which had long been hiding in corners of the room now crept boldly forth and climbed the velvet curtains of the canopy above the bed. Mary wanted to light the gas, but her grandmother waved her hand to signify that she preferred the gloom.
"I have wondered sometimes lately if you ever think of that young Frenchman whom I dissuaded you from marrying."
"Why, no, Grandmamma," said Mary. "Or if I do, only as one might think of anybody in the past."
"You are happy, really happy? Your marriage has brought you happiness?"
"Yes, yes, indeed, Grandmamma. Could anybody be unhappy with Richard and Geoffrey and Muriel?"
"You are happy because of the children?" Lady Flower persisted. "Your husband does not count?"