“Yes, though an atmosphere which might perhaps seem an unsympathetic one——”
He left the sentence unfinished, and it required no effort on Rosamund’s part to conjecture his meaning. Sir Guy resented, none the less implacably that his resentment was expressed by implication only, the attitude of Mrs. Tregaskis towards her daughter. That Hazel herself had never resented it, and had only opposed to it the bright glancing hardness of her impenetrable self-confidence, did not, Rosamund felt, in any way diminish his perfectly silent ire. Mrs. Tregaskis herself would be forced to recognize that in this man fifteen years her senior, Hazel had found champion as well as lover, knight as well as comrade.
Rosamund turned away with an aching heart, wondering dimly whether her need had not been greater than Hazel’s.
After the formal consent given by Frederick Tregaskis, there had been no further discussions between Sir Guy and Mrs. Tregaskis. She accepted her defeat with the sort of grim gallantry that would always be characteristic of her, and, as far as Rosamund knew, attempted no appeal to Hazel. But she aged more perceptibly in the weeks before Hazel’s marriage than during all the five years that Rosamund had passed at Porthlew.
No other indication that her guardian recognized defeat was evident to Rosamund’s eyes. Her manner to her daughter was what it had always been—kindly, authoritative, at times possessive. She admitted Sir Guy’s claims to much of her daughter’s time, and even seemed disposed, gradually, to concede to him rights which he had not tried to arrogate for himself.
“You mustn’t let this little person be too much in London,” she observed, with a hand upon Hazel’s shoulder. “We’re very excitable, and it knocks us up. I had to be a very strict mamma and bring her home long before the dances had come to an end last year.”
“If we take the St. James’ Square flat, there is no reason why we shouldn’t spend all the week-ends Hazel likes at Marleswood.”
“Well, I don’t know about week-ends,” said Bertha doubtfully. “They’re not very restful. I think a home in the country and an occasional fling in London must be Hazel’s programme.”
She spoke with her customary matter-of-fact assurance and kindly good sense.
Sir Guy fixed his objectionable monocle more firmly.