Nevertheless, she divined that Julia’s unaffected indifference was developing the instinct of the hunter to spur the passion of the lover, reflected that an ignorant girl babbling nonsense would have detracted from the charm of the picture Julia made by the window in her white frock, staring through the jalousies with the wistfulness of youth. But when France began to scowl and move restlessly, she said: —
“Julia, run out into the garden, but do not go far. Mr. France will join you presently.”
Julia had disappeared before the order was finished. Mrs. Edis studied the man’s face still more keenly for a few moments, the while she discoursed about poverty in the West Indies.
There alone in the big dim room something about the man subtly repelled her, and her active mind sought for the cause even while talking with immense dignity upon the only topic of general interest in her narrow life. She had seen little of the great world, but a good deal of dissipated men, and France had none of the insignia to which she was accustomed. His bronzed cheeks, although cleft by ugly lines, were firm; his eyes were clear, and the lines about them might have been due to exposure, laughter, or midnight study. His nose was thin, his mouth invisible under a heavy moustache, but assuredly not loose. The truth was that France had not been drunk for a month, and having a superb constitution would look little the worse for his methodical sprees until his stomach and heart were a few years older. His grizzled close-cropped hair did not set off his somewhat primitive head to the best advantage, but his figure, carriage, grooming, were, to Mrs. Edis’s provincial eyes, those of a proud and self-respecting man.
As the planets were reticent on some subjects, and as she truly loved her daughter, she determined to satisfy her curiosity at first hand, and lay her scruples if possible.
“Is it true that you are dissipated?” she asked abruptly.
He flushed a dark slow red, but his brain, abnormally alive to the instinct of self-protection, worked more rapidly.
“I’ve gone the pace, rather,” he said, in his well-modulated voice. “Nothing out of the common, however. Sick of it, too. Wouldn’t care if I never saw alcohol—or—ah—any of the other things you call dissipations, again.”
He delivered this so simply and honestly that a more experienced woman would have believed him.
“Who told you I was dissipated?” he added. “The Captain? He don’t like me. He’s a bounder and has social aspirations. I’ve never asked him to my club in London, or to Bosquith. That’s all there is to that.”