"Well, Atherstone has improved a great deal," Sybil answered, thoughtfully. "There are a great many things about him which I like very much. He is always well dressed and fresh and nice. He enjoys himself without being dissipated, and he is perfectly natural. He is rather boyish perhaps, but then he is young. He is not afraid to laugh, and I like the way he enters into everything. And I think I like his persistence."
"As his wife," Lady Caroom said, "you would have immense opportunities for doing good. He has a great deal of property in London, besides three huge estates in Somerset."
"That is a great consideration," Sybil said, earnestly. "I shall always be thankful that I met Mr. Brooks. He made me think in a practical way about things which have always troubled me a little. I should hate to seem thoughtless or ungrateful to him. Will you tell me something, mother?" Of course."
"Do you think that he cares—at all?"
I think he does—a little!
"Enough to be reconciled with his father for my sake?"
"No! Not enough for that," Lady Caroom answered.
Sybil drew a little breath.
"I think," she said, "that that decides me."
The long ascent was over at last. They pulled up before the inn, in front of which the proprietor was already executing a series of low bows. Before they could descend there was a familiar sound from behind, and a young man, in a grey flannel suit and Panama hat, jumped from his motor and came to the carriage door.