A little colour came into Theodore's pale fair face, and his chin grew visibly more rigid above his cravat, as he answered, "I don't know. But the social convenances are not to be measured by Oldchester's provincial ideas as to their strangeness. And—pardon me—I don't think you quite understand Miss Cheffington's position."
And then he entered on an explanation of the "position," much as he had explained it to Owen Rivers; with only such suppressions and variations (chiefly regarding the private history of Augustus Cheffington) as he thought the difference between his hearers demanded.
"Well, I'm sure if your father has no objection, I have none," said Mrs. Bransby at length. And so Theodore got his own way. It was a matter of course that he should get his own way so far as his step-mother was concerned. Mrs. Bransby had, indeed, successfully resisted him on many occasions; but always through the medium of her husband. If Theodore attacked her face to face, she never had the courage to oppose him. Not that in the present case she very much wished to oppose him. Nor, in truth, had their wills ever clashed seriously. But the secret consciousness of her weakness and timidity was mortifying: for Mrs. Bransby, although too gentle to fight, was not too gentle to wish she could fight. And after Theodore had left the room, she sat for some time imagining to herself various neat and pointed speeches which would doubtless have brought down her stepson's sententious, supercilious tone, if she had only had the presence of mind to utter them.
CHAPTER VI.
May Cheffington went back to her grand-mother's house, very eager to understand the origin of the rumours about herself which she had heard at the Hadlows'. Mrs. Dobbs had not calculated on this, and would have preferred to break the project to May herself, and in her own fashion. However, as it had been mentioned, she spoke of it openly. She merely cautioned her grand-daughter against rashly jumping at any conclusions: the future being very vague and unsettled.
"There's one conclusion I have jumped at, granny," said the girl, "and that is, that I don't mean to give you up for any aunts, or uncles, or cousins of them all. They are strangers to me, and I don't care a straw about them—how should I?—whilst you are—granny!"
"There is no question of giving me up, May. Perhaps I should not like that much better than you would. But if your father should think it right for you to stay for a while with his family, we mustn't oppose him. And I must tell you that I should think it right, too."
"Oh, if it's only staying 'for a while'——!"
"Well, at all events we needn't look beyond a 'while' and a short while, for the present."