"If you wish it." And with an air of unwonted obedience, she followed Mrs. Halifax.
Poor Guy!—confused young lover!—meeting for the first time after his confession the acknowledged object of his preference—I really felt sorry for him! And, except that women have generally twice as much self-control in such cases as men—and Miss Silver proved it—I might even have been sorry for her. But then her uncertainties would soon be over. She had not to make—all her family being aware she was then and there making it—that terrible "offer of marriage," which, I am given to understand, is, even under the most favourable circumstances, as formidable as going up to the cannon's mouth.
I speak of it jestingly, as we all jested uneasily that morning, save Mrs. Halifax, who scarcely spoke a word. At length, when Miss Silver, growing painfully restless, again referred to "lessons," she said:
"Not yet. I want Maud for half an hour. Will you be so kind as to take my place, and sit with my son the while?"
"Oh, certainly!"
I was vexed with her—really vexed—for that ready assent; but then, who knows the ins and outs of women's ways? At any rate, for Guy's sake this must be got over—the quicker the better. His mother rose.
"My son, my dear boy!" She leant over him, whispering—I think she kissed him—then slowly, quietly, she walked out of the study. I followed. Outside the door we parted, and I heard her go up-stairs to her own room.
It might have been half an hour afterwards, when Maud and I, coming in from the garden, met her standing in the hall. No one was with her, and she was doing nothing; two very remarkable facts in the daily life of the mother of the family.
Maud ran up to her with some primroses.
"Very pretty, very pretty, my child."