"Oh, yes, I mean just that—misses your mother. She has taken care of him for years, you know, and I don't imagine Mrs. Crichell would be as patient with his moods and vagaries as your mother has always been."
Then suddenly the memory of her father in his less pleasant phases swept over Grisel, and her face was grim and tight as she answered:
"No, and I hope she isn't! His hot milk last thing at night, and his four grades of underclothing, and his trouser-pressing machines, and his indigestion! His hot bottles in the middle of the night every time he's dined too well, and poor mother poking around in the kitchen heating kettles on the gas-ring! Oh, no, Mrs. Crichell won't much like that side of her beau sabreur, as she calls him."
After dinner, as they walked in the garden, Sir John told her that he had met Walter Crichell that morning.
"The poor wretch looks miserably unhappy," he said. "Those white hands of his look—look shrunken in their skin—rather as if he had kid gloves on."
Grisel shuddered. "Ugh! his hands are loathsome! After all," she added a moment later, staring at a rose-bush, "there is no reason why the poor wretch should be hurt like this just because he has horrid hands! Oh! John," she cried, catching his arm almost as if she were frightened, "what an awful lot of misery there is in the world."
He covered her small hand with his big, strong, brown one.
"Yes, dear, there is. A great deal of it is inevitable and has to be borne, but the other kind—the kind that can be avoided—ought always, I think, to be avoided. It is right that it should be avoided."
She loosed his arm and looked up at him as they walked on.
"What do you mean?"