Then he remembered that she wasn’t a Miss at all, but the wife of that ancient bustard Stephen. Horrible as it was of her to go and marry anybody so moth-eaten with age, it yet gave him an argument, and a very mighty one, to use against Catherine when occasion should—and would—arise. In as far as this went, he was much obliged to Virginia; but except for this he didn’t mind admitting that he regarded her with aversion. She oughtn’t to be there at all. Unborn, she would have been perfectly all right and comfortable, and Catherine wouldn’t have had any of her ideas about being the mother of a married daughter, and what would Virginia say, and all such stuff. Directly he saw the girl, and her cold eyes and her determined mouth, he knew he was going to have trouble with Catherine when things had reached their crisis—as they were bound to do—about what Virginia would say, and think, and feel. He knew it, he knew it.
‘Oh, damn——’ he muttered; and jerked up his elbow to look at his wrist-watch again.
‘If your mother doesn’t come soon,’ he said, ‘I see no prospect of our reaching London to-night.’ And to himself, spirit grinning, he added, ‘That’ll fetch them.’
It did.
‘Really, Virginia,’ Mrs. Colquhoun instantly said, turning to her with a kind of shocked bristling, ‘do go up and tell your mother she must hurry. Or shall I? The stairs——’
But there was Catherine, coming in like light and warmth, he thought, into a dark and frost-bound place.
‘Oh, Christopher!’ she exclaimed in her surprise at seeing him there—(‘Christopher,’ noted Mrs. Colquhoun)—‘You here already? I didn’t hear you arrive. Aren’t you very early?’
‘Far from being very early,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, rising from her chair preparatory to going into the hall to witness this unique departure, ‘Mr. Monckton says it is very late. Hardly time, indeed, to get to London.’
‘Oh, but let us go at once, then. Have you been introduced to Virginia? Oh, yes, I’ve got a fur coat—it’s in the hall. Virginia darling, take care of yourself, won’t you. Good-bye, Mrs. Colquhoun—oh yes, I know you will—I do know she is perfectly safe in your hands. And whenever you want me, dearest—whenever you want me, you’ve only got to send me one little word, and I’ll come.’
‘Sweet of you, mother.’