It having rained without ceasing for a week at the Lakes, the young man had taken his bride to North Devon, where he had hired a car and they had spent a delightful time tearing over the country as fast as they could go, which happened to be Mr. Gaskell-Walker's higher form of enjoyment. He had made notes of the distance traversed each separate day, and to Mrs. Walbridge's bewildered mind, it seemed as if they had been nowhere, but had spent their time going from or to different places. However, her pretty daughter was in blooming health, and displayed her airs and graces in an artless and becoming way like some pretty bird. Wracked with worry, almost unbearably anxious about her new work, on which subject her publishers had maintained a silence which looked ominous. Mrs. Walbridge gave herself up to delight for a few hours in watching the happiness of these young people and hearing their comfortable plans for the future. She had never seen the house in Campden Hill, but Hermione had been taken there shortly before her wedding, and was delighted with everything about it. The drawing-room was apparently the only drawing-room in London that was over twenty feet long, and the art treasures, about which the young woman talked vaguely, but with immense satisfaction, seemed to be various and valuable.
"There is a whole room full of Chinese dragons," Gaskell-Walker told her at dinner, "wicked-looking, teethy devils of all sizes. I used to be awfully frightened of them when I was a kid."
"And the loveliest Indian screens, mother, you know, that dull, crumbly-looking wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl."
Mrs. Walbridge had no idea of the exact income of her son-in-law, but she knew that the young couple intended to keep three servants and that Billy was partner in a fairly prosperous, though new, stockbroking firm in Throgmorton Street. He was not so sympathetic to her as Maud's husband. Moreton Twiss was young and full of boyish high spirits and a kind of innocent horse-play, that even the arrival of Hilary had in no wise quieted; and for some reason his untidy black hair and twinkling eyes were dearer to her than the correct smartness of the more conventional Gaskell-Walker.
Gaskell-Walker was ten or twelve years older than the other man, although he had married the younger daughter, and being extremely short-sighted, he wore pince-nez, without which his mother-in-law had never seen him. She was one of those people who prefer eyes to be unglazed. However, everything pointed to happiness being in store for Hermy, for she and her husband were very much in love with each other, he rather more than she was, which her mother felt to be as things should be. And the little dinner was very pleasant, Paul being at his best, which was very good, so good that he rarely produced it for family use, and Hermy, being a daughter for any mother's eyes to rest upon with pride, in her pretty sapphire-blue frock, with the charming diamond pendant her husband had given her for her wedding present, blinking on her lovely bosom.
"What news from Guy?" the bride asked, as they lingered in the old-fashioned way over their walnuts and port.
"I had a beautiful letter from him only this afternoon. I am going to show it to you. He's very well and seems to have made some nice friends amongst the officers."
Gaskell-Walker laughed. "Trust Master Guy to make friends," he said, cracking a nut with care, his over-manicured nails flashing as he did so. "Easier to make than to keep them in his case."
"Like the Governor," commented Paul carelessly.
"Children, children," Mrs. Walbridge glanced with anxious eyes from the one to the other, "I do wish you wouldn't speak of your father so—or Guy either, Paul, if you don't mind."