Mrs. Gentleman Geff was as well as serene, and as beautiful as it was possible for her to be under her adverse circumstances.
But then, being the woman that she was, she had much to console her. She had come from Paris enriched with Indian shawls, velvet and satin dresses, laces and jewels which might have been the envy of a duchess.
She wore her traveling suit of navy-blue poplin, for they were to take an early train for Yorkshire immediately after breakfast. She performed her duties as hostess at breakfast with perfect self-possession, though often under great provocation.
“When you are settled at the rectory you will, of course, bring down Mrs. Leegh and the children. I am quite longing to make the acquaintance of my sweet sister-in-law and her little ones,” said Lamia softly.
“I don’t know,” sulkily replied her brother. “It’s a bad time—in midwinter—to move children from the mild climate of Somerset to the severe one of York.”
“Look here!” angrily and despotically exclaimed Gentleman Geff. “I won’t have it! You’ve got to bring ’em, climate or no climate, or you’re no parson for my parish! It was well enough when you were rollicking and carousing ’round Paris to leave your wife and kids with your father-in-law in Somerset, but when you’re settled in Haymore rectory you have got to have ’em with you. It would be deuced disreputable to have you, the pastor of a parish, living in one place and your wife and children in another. And I don’t want any reverend reprobates around me, I can tell you that much!”
“You shall have no cause to complain, Mr. Hay,” replied Cassius Leegh, controlling his temper and speaking coolly, though his blood was boiling with rage at the insult, for which he would have liked to knock his “patron” down.
“I think it is time to go.”
Gentleman Geff arose, muttering curses at all and sundry persons and things, flung his pocketbook at Mr. Leegh and told him to go down to the office and settle the bill and order a cab.
Half an hour later Gentleman Geff and his companions were seated in a compartment of a first-class carriage, flying northward as fast as the mail train could carry them.