He was climbing back on to the pedestal; they would not speak of this incident again; they would pretend each one of them, that it had not happened. In the end Peregrine would believe that it had not, and Harriette would pretend, even to herself, because there were some truths it was better not to face.
Judith, anxiously awaiting the result of the Colonel's interview with his brother, could scarcely believe him when he told her curtly that the Taverners were leaving Brussels. She exclaimed: "You don't mean it! I had not though it to be possible! What can you have said constrain him?"
"There was no other course to follow. He was fully sensible of it."
He spoke rather harshly. She said in a pleading tongue "Do not be too angry with him, Charles! He is so young."
"You are mistaken: I am not angry with him. I am excessively sorry for him, poor devil!"
"I am persuaded he will soon recover."
"Oh yes! But that one so near to me should have caused this unhappiness -" He checked himself.
"If it had not been Lady Barbara it would have been another, I daresay."
He was silent, and she did not like to pursue the topic. Worth presently came in, followed by the butler with the tea tray, and Judith was glad to see the Colonel rouse himself from a mood of abstraction, and join with all his usual cheerfulness in the ordinary commonplace talk of every day.
He did not go out again that evening, nor, next morning, was his horse saddled for an early ride. The Sky was overcast, and a thin rain was falling. It stopped later, and by noon the sun was shining, but a press of work at Headquarters kept the Colonel busy all the morning.