She had expressed the charitable hope that he would not be hurt, and with claws and teeth her charity had come home to roost. It had dreadful habits in its siesta; it roosted with fixed talons and sleepless lids; it cried to the horses of the night to go slowly, and delay the dawn, for so it would prolong the pleasures of its refreshment. And each day it rose with her, strengthened and more vigorous. Had Colin only rebelled at her choice, that would have comforted her; she would have gathered will-power from his very opposition. But with his acquiescing and welcoming, she had to bear the burden of her choice alone. If he had only cared he would have stormed at her, and like the Elizabethan flirt, she would have answered his upbraidings with a smile. As it was, the smile was his, not hers. Almost, to win his upbraidings, she would have sacrificed the goodly heritage—all the honour and the secular glory of it.
Perhaps by now, for she had wandered far, the rest of them might have dispersed, her grandmother to the seclusion of her own rooms, Uncle Philip to the library, and Raymond to the lake, and she let herself into the house by the front door and passed into the hall. The great Holbein above the chimney piece smiled at her with Colin’s indifferent lips; the faded parchment was but a blur in the dark frame, and she went through into the long gallery which faced the garden front. All seemed still outside, and after waiting a moment in the entrance, she stepped on to the terrace, and there they were still; her grandmother alert and vigilant, Philip beside her, and Raymond dozing in his chair, with his illustrated paper fallen from his knee. What ailed them all that they waited like this; above all, what ailed her, that she cared whether they waited or not?
Soundless though she hoped her first footfalls on the terrace had been, they were sufficient to rouse Raymond. He sat up, his sleepiness all dispersed.
“Hullo, Vi!” he said. “Where have you been?”
“Just for a stroll,” said she.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come with you.”
Suddenly old Lady Yardley rose, and pointed down on to the road across the marsh.
“Colin is coming,” she said. “There’s his motor.”
Certainly a mile away there was, to Violet’s young eyes, an infinitesimal speck on the white riband, but to the dimness of the old, that must surely have been invisible. Lord Yardley, following the direction of her hand, could see nothing.
“No, mother, there’s nothing to be seen yet,” he said, proving that he, too, was absorbed in this unaccountable business of waiting for Colin.