“To tell him that they’re making themselves the talk of Cross Loman? How considerate!”
“It seems rather a brave sort of thing to have done,” Nancy said wistfully.
Her own strong point is not moral courage.
“Of course, she’s older than he is, and besides, she’s married already, and—and there are other things as well. But I can’t help being very sorry for her. And I am fond of him.”
I thought Christopher Ambrey looked rather anxious, at that, and that I had better give him the opportunity of going into the question of the exact degree of fondness that Captain Patch had inspired in Mrs. Fazackerly. So I left them together.
Their love affair was progressing very, very slowly, and I did not even then feel sure that it was destined to a successful fulfilment.
Claire, I knew, would use all her influence to prevent it, which seemed to render it rather more likely to happen, but old Carey was capable of working seriously upon his daughter’s feelings to the extent of making her think it her duty to remain with him.
There was no doubt that Christopher, hitherto singularly unsusceptible, was attracted by her. He always turned over the pages of her music for her at rehearsals, and once he had given her a bunch of lilies of the valley.
There were pauses in his courtship, during which he evidently thought over the next stage before embarking upon it, but on the whole the affair was going forward.
Nancy Fazackerly was looking prettier than I had ever seen her. She had one or two new frocks that summer, too, as though she thought it was worth while to look her best.