“Well, don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to say anything to annoy you. As I say, it’s only natural to flirt with somebody, and I suppose my uncle makes confidantes of his Gainsborough ladies. Even a picture would be more sympathetic than my aunt when Jack’s away.”
Rhoda was greatly scandalised by this short conversation with The Terrors, whom she found still worthy of their name, as Mrs. Hawkes had predicted. She was, besides, rendered uneasy by the lad’s perspicacity with regard not only to his aunt, but his uncle. The expression he had used, ‘to flirt,’ was odious and horrid. But there could be no doubt that in the main his contention, better expressed, would have been sound. Not only were the ill-mated pair happier apart than together, but each certainly found happiness in the society of others. Sir Robert looked the picture of content when he was hunting among his notes with Rhoda on one side of him and Caryl on the other; while Lady Sarah’s low spirits disappeared as if by magic when Jack Rotherfield came into the room.
She wondered how this over-frank young man got on with his uncle and aunt, and had the satisfaction of seeing, at dinner-time, that The Terrors had tact enough to affect a guileless air of innocence in the presence of their guardians.
Only when it was perfectly safe to do so did George, after some allusion to Jack Rotherfield, glance over at his sister and bestow upon her a slight wink, which she promptly responded to in the same graceful fashion.
It was a childlike question put by Minnie to her aunt which elicited the reply that Jack Rotherfield would be again at Dourville in a week.
“I’m so sorry. I shall miss him,” said George sweetly.
“Perhaps he won’t miss you, dear,” said his sister solemnly.
Luckily only Rhoda guessed at the veiled sarcasm in the ingenuous speech.
It was terrible to have to hear these two precocious young people sitting in judgment on their elders; they made her feel shy of entering the study to help Sir Robert, and she was aware that there was a grave interchange of glances between the two dreadful young people when the baronet made any remark about her work for him.
She was quite glad when George had to go back to Sandhurst, as, although she was aware that Minnie watched and noted as well in her brother’s absence as if he had been there, still there was now no one with whom she could exchange her stealthy little looks, and that, Rhoda felt, was a relief.