“Colin, I wish I could do anything for you,” he said, with unusual emotion. “You are such a dear fellow, and you bear it all with such wonderful patience. Wouldn’t it do you good now to curse Raymond a little?”
Colin felt that he must not overdo the angelic rôle.
“Oh, I’ve been doing so,” he said, “but I think I shall stop. It’s no use. It wouldn’t hurt Raymond, even if he knew about it, and it doesn’t help me. And it’s certainly time I stopped sulking. Have I been very sulky all evening, father? Apologies.”
“You’ve been a brick. But about stopping out here alone. Are you sure you won’t mope and be miserable? Perhaps I might manage to stay out with you an extra week.”
That would not do at all. Colin hastened to put that out of the question.
“Oh, but you must do nothing of the kind,” he said quickly. “I know you’ve got to get back. I shan’t mope at all. And I think one gets used to things quicker alone. There’s only just one thing I wonder about. Have we both been quite blind about Violet? Has she been in love with Raymond without our knowing it? I, at any rate, had no idea of it. She’s in love with him now, I suppose. Did her letter give you that impression?”
Philip hesitated. Violet’s letter, short and unemotional, had not given him any such impression. But so triumphantly successful had been Colin’s assumption of the unembittered, though disappointed, lover, that he paused, positively afraid that Colin would regret that Violet’s heart was not so blissfully engaged as his brother’s. Before he answered Colin spoke again:
“Ah, I see,” he said. “She’s in love with him, and you are afraid it will hurt me to know it. Ripping of you.... After all, she’s lucky, too, isn’t she? She’s got the fellow she loves, and she’ll be mistress of Stanier. I think she adores Stanier almost as much as you and I, father.”
Colin felt he could not better this as a conclusion. He rose and stretched himself.
“There!” he said. “That expresses what I feel in my mind. It has been cramped all day, and now I’ve stretched it, and am not going to have cramp any more. What shall we do? Stroll down to the piazza, or sit here and play piquet? I vote for the piazza. Diversion, you know.”