"For myself I can bear anything," she answered, "but I feel that for her it is shocking to make things so public."
It was shocking. In spite of his flippancy he felt the vulgarity of it as acutely as she felt it; and he was conscious of something closely akin to relief, when Richard Ordway dropped in after dinner to tell them that Alice and Geoffrey had come to a complete reconciliation.
"But will it last?" Lydia questioned, in an uneasy voice.
"We'll hope so at all events," replied the old man, "they appeared certainly to be very friendly when I came away. Whatever happens it is surely to Alice's interest that she should be kept out of a public scandal."
They were still discussing the matter, after Richard had gone, when the girl herself ran in, bringing Geoffrey, and fairly brilliant with life and spirits.
"We've decided to forget everything disagreeable," she said, "we're going to begin over again and be nice and jolly, and if I don't spend too much money, we are going to Egypt in April."
"If you're happy, then I'm satisfied," returned Ordway, and he held out his hand to Geoffrey by way of apology.
To do the young man justice, he appeared to cherish no resentment for the blow, though he still bore a scar on his upper lip. He looked heavy and handsome, and rather amiable in a dull way, and the one discovery Daniel made about him was that he entertained a profound admiration for Richard Ordway. Still, when everybody in Botetourt shared his sentiment, this was hardly deserving of notice.
As the weeks went on it looked as if peace were really restored, and even Lydia's face lost its anxious foreboding, when she gazed on the assembled family at Thanksgiving. Dick had grown into a quiet, distinguished looking young fellow, more than ever like his Uncle Richard, and it was touching to watch his devotion to his delicate mother. At least Lydia possessed one enduring consolation in life, Ordway reflected, with a rush of gratitude.
In the afternoon Alice drove with him out into the country, along the pale brown November roads, and he felt, while he sat beside her, with her hand clasped tightly in his under the fur robe, that she was again the daughter of his dreams, who had flown to his arms in the terrible day of his homecoming. She was in one of her rare moods of seriousness, and when she lifted her eyes to his, it seemed to him that they held a new softness, a deeper blueness. Something in her face brought back to him the memory of Emily as she had looked down at him when he knelt before her; and again he was aware of some subtle link which bound together in his thoughts the two women whom he loved.