Again, Rupert was staggered. Dick—always Dick, first from Lady Devene and now from his mother. What could be the meaning of it? Then again optimism came to his aid, he who knew full surely that Dick was nothing to Edith.
“You are mistaken there for once, mother,” he said, with a cheerful laugh. “I knew from the first what she thought about Dick, for she spoke very seriously to me of him and his performances in a way she would never have done if there were anything in this silly idea.”
“Women often do speak seriously of the bad behaviour of the man of whom they are fond, especially to one whom they think may influence him for good,” replied his mother, with the wistful smile which she was wont to wear when thinking of her own deep affection for a man who had deserved it little.
“Perhaps,” he said. “All I have to say is that if ever there was anything—and I know there wasn’t—it is as dead as last month’s moon.”
Mrs. Ullershaw thought to herself that this simile drawn from the changeful moon, that waxes anew as surely as it wanes, was scarcely fortunate. But she kept a watch upon her lips.
“I am very glad to hear it,” she said, “and no doubt it was all a mistake, since, of course, if she had wished it, she might have married Dick long ago, before you came into her life at all. Well, dearest, I can only say that I wish you every happiness, and pray that she may be as good a wife to you as I know you will be husband to her. She is lovely,” she went on, as though summing up Edith’s best points, “one of the most graceful and finished women whom I have ever seen; she is very clever in her own way, too, though perhaps not in yours; thoughtful and observant. Ambitious also, and will therefore make an excellent wife for a man with a career. She is good-tempered and kind, as I know, for we have always got on well during the years we have lived together. Yes, you will be considered very fortunate, Rupert.”
“These are her advantages, what are her drawbacks?” he asked shrewdly, feeling that his mother was keeping something from him, “though I must say at once that in my eyes she has none.”
“Which is as it should be, Rupert. Well, I will tell you frankly, so that you may guard against them if I am right. Edith likes pleasure and the good things of the world, as, after all, is only natural, and she is extravagant, which perhaps in certain circumstances will not matter. Again, I hope you will never fall ill, for she is not a good nurse, not from unkindness, but because she has a constitutional horror of all ill-health or unsightliness. I have seen her turn white at meeting a cripple even, and I don’t think that she has ever quite liked sitting with me since I had that stroke, especially while it disfigured my face and made the lower eyelid drop.”
“We all have failings which we can’t help,” he answered; “natural antipathies that are born in us, and I am glad to say I am fairly sound at present. So I don’t think much of that black list, mother. Anything to add to it?”
She hesitated, then said: