The day following, Mrs. Tregaskis and Frances went down to Cornwall.
Frances felt as though she had been away for a lifetime, and had to combat an unreasonable tendency to astonishment at finding her surroundings utterly unchanged.
It was a relief to her that no allusion was made at first to that change in herself of which she felt so acutely conscious.
Frederick, rather as though the words were dragged out of him under protest, asked for news of Hazel, and Miss Blandflower squeaked ecstatic inquiries about the baby.
“Is the dear little man like Hazel?”
“Not very like her,” said Bertha rather slowly. “His eyes are dark blue, for one thing.”
Everyone remembered Sir Guy’s remarkably dark blue eyes, with the apparent exception of the unfortunate Minnie, who exclaimed in a high-pitched key of astonishment:
“Now where can he get that from? Yours are so very brown, dear Mrs. Tregaskis, and Hazel’s, as we know, match her name.”
“By some extraordinary coincidence,” said Frederick’s disagreeable voice, “the child has inherited his father’s eyes.”
Miss Blandflower looked confused, laughed a good deal in a nervous way, and made a characteristic attempt to retrieve her verbal footing by embarking upon a disastrous quotation: