Mr. Garrett's father, who might certainly have served as a substantial peg upon which to hang many a word of gentle forbearance, had gone away, and even the most determined philanthropy could see no hopeful outlet in the direction of Ruthie and Ambrose Easter.
Lady Rossiter began to think of Mark. This she did almost instinctively whenever her sense of the need for "giving out" was at a loss for an object. The situation of Mark Easter was one of such obvious tragedy, and daily reiterated pathos, that the consideration of it could minimise the rather incongruous light-heartedness with which he himself faced it. One could always help Mark.
His children needed help.
His whole household required the supervision of a feminine eye at the shortest possible intervals, and Edna had for years regarded herself as the only woman with eyes available for the purpose. Yet when, on leaving the villa after the wedding, she had suggested, with a very gentle hint of compassionate understanding in her voice, that Mark should come and dine at Culmhayes that night, he had replied, without confusion, that he was going straight up to the College and should remain there late.
It was tragically inevitable, Edna told herself, that one should realise what this implied.
Edna sat in reflection for some time, her face shadowed and saddened, but with that absence of mobility of expression that had left her smooth skin almost altogether unlined throughout her life.
At dinner that night, notwithstanding, she met Sir Julian with an unclouded brow. She often said that part of her rule of life was to leave all her cares locked up in her own room, so that she might always diffuse serenity when with others.
By some perversity of fate, however, Edna's effect upon her husband was never the one at which she so carefully aimed. On this occasion the diffusion of serenity engineered by Lady Rossiter appeared only to leave Sir Julian rather more satirically ill-tempered than it found him.
"Julian, you've thought about the question of sending someone from the staff here to Gloucester, haven't you? It will be rather a big responsibility."
"For Gloucester?"