“You wanted me, eh? Hope you left the Doctor and Mrs. Chichester quite well? Sydney, hadn’t you better get your ride while the sun’s out? It’s a first-class morning, and you’ll see Mr. Chichester at lunch, you know, and get all your town news then.”
Hugh’s eyes followed the graceful figure from the room. He had not seen her before in long dresses and with the hair coiled round the shapely head. Though the presentation had not taken place, partly owing to the illness, and later to Sydney’s obstinate refusal to leave the cousin to whom she was becoming daily more necessary, even Lady Frederica had seen the impossibility of keeping the child-Sydney any longer.
They had grown used to the change at the Castle, but Hugh saw her for the first time with the unspeakable charm of sweet young womanhood upon her.
St. Quentin noted the direction of his eyes and spoke.
“I’m sorry for you, Hugh; indeed I am. If things were different——”
“Oh, I know!” poor Hugh burst out. “You needn’t be afraid, Lord St. Quentin. I know I’ve got to keep out of her way all I can. You needn’t be afraid of my forgetting that I never can be anything but her brother Hugh—some one to stand by her if she should need any one to do it, but never to presume on that!”
He walked to the window, and stood staring out at the fresh green of the Park and the spring glory of the garden, all ablaze with crocuses, in lilac, white, and gold.
“Well,” St. Quentin said, “I think the child would have been a good deal happier if circumstances hadn’t put her into this position. But they have, and she will make a first-rate Lady St. Quentin one of these days, I imagine, though there’s no doubt she’ll spoil the tenants shamefully, you Chichesters having taught her to think of everyone except herself. You are an unselfish family, and you’ve taught her to be the same. I wish—I wish—you wanted something I could give you.”
“I don’t want anything except to see Sydney happy,” poor Hugh said, and then he came and sat down by his host. “I’m forgetting what I came about,” he said. “Will you forgive me for touching on a subject which must be rather painful to you?”