He turned slowly towards her.
She was deeply relieved that the affaire Rosamund should have been successfully tided over. Morris was far from being as heartbroken at the idea of parting from his love as he had been before their final interview, and the evening passed amid a harmonious rendering of a strong man’s grief and his mother’s tender sympathy.
Preparations for his journey absorbed Morris for the next twenty-four hours, during which he and his mother enjoyed the sense of perfect companionship which was always theirs on the rare occasions when their respective mental tableaux vivants of one another happened to coincide, and then he was off.
“Good-bye, my darling boy. Enjoy yourself.”
“Thank you, mother dear. Write to me and”—his voice took on the slightly deeper note consecrated to the strong-man-in-grief attitude—“tell me any news of her.”
“Yes, dearest, of course,” tenderly replied Nina, but she refrained from telling him the only piece of news which transpired during the next few days: that Frances was not well enough for Mrs. Tregaskis to leave her, and that Rosamund had refused to accompany Hazel to Scotland, but remained with her guardian at Porthlew.
“It is tiresome of her,” said Bertha, in a tone more nearly resembling annoyance than she often used.
“Frances isn’t seriously ill at all, and if she were Rosamund would be the worst possible person for her. She goes about looking like a tragedy-queen, as though Frances were at death’s door.”
“Why on earth did you let her stay?” said Nina with more derision than sympathy in her voice.
“She asked Frederick. You know how tiresome and contradictory he can be, and of course he knew perfectly well that I didn’t want Rosamund fussing and fretting on my hands, but he said she could do as she liked. He always takes up an absurd attitude of having no authority over those two, as you know.”