“Who are they, John?” he asked.
Mr Musgrave gazed thoughtfully into the fire. From the concentration of his look it would seem as though he found there the record of the family under discussion.
“The man,” he said slowly, “is a connection of Charlie Sommers. Belle wrote to me that they had taken the Hall. She wants me to be civil to them. The expression is hers. His name is Chadwick. I met him at Charlie’s place last year. He made his money in Ceylon, I understand, in rubber, or cocoa, or something of that sort. His wife is—modern.” He pursed his lips, and looked up suddenly. “That expression also emanates from Belle. I don’t think I like it very much. There are no children.”
“The result of her modernity, possibly,” observed the vicar.
John Musgrave’s air was faintly disapproving. He did not appreciate the levity of some of Walter Errol’s remarks.
“I am not much of a judge of women,” he added seriously, “but from the little I saw of her I think she will be—a misfit in Moresby.”
Mrs Errol laughed.
“I believe I am going to like her,” she said. “I’m a misfit in Moresby myself.”
John Musgrave turned to regard her with a protracted, contemplative look. She met his serious eyes, and smiled mockingly. Though she liked this old friend of her husband very well, his pedantry often worried her; it was, however, she realised, a part of the man’s nature, and not an affectation, which would have made it offensive.
“You are not a misfit in the sense in which she will be,” he replied quietly.