"I don't know if keeping the hounds is a duty," Jim rejoined. "Perhaps Lance was nearest when he called it a game. All the same, I think I'd like the job."
They began to talk about the advisability of moving the kennels and Carrie, sitting quiet, studied the others. She saw Mrs. Halliday was pleased and thought she understood this. Mordaunt puzzled her. His rather dark face was hard to read, but she had got a hint of disappointment when he said the choice lay between Langrigg and Dryholm and Bernard declared he was too old. Then she suspected a touch of bitterness in his next remark. The others had noted nothing, except perhaps Bernard, who had looked at Mordaunt hard. Carrie did not like Mordaunt; he sometimes sneered politely at Jim.
"It is something to know Jim is willing, but the post is not my gift," Bernard resumed. "A meeting will no doubt be held to weigh the matter and if Jim is chosen, I should not be surprised."
Then he got up and shivered as the creeping shadow touched the bench he occupied. Some of the others went off along the terrace and Jim and Evelyn crossed the lawn. They were talking animatedly and Carrie felt a pang when Jim's laugh came back to her. In the woods she had cheered him and he laughed at her jokes. Now he was always kind but he forgot her when Evelyn was about. She turned rather moodily towards the arch and saw Bernard standing in the gloom. His eyes were fixed on the figures on the lawn and Carrie thought he looked annoyed, but he smiled when he heard her step.
"They have left you alone?" he said. "Well, we must amuse each other, and there are some flowers in the hot-house that I don't think you have seen."
Carrie went with him thoughtfully. Bernard's remarks were often oracular; he left one to guess what he meant, but she imagined his glance was sympathetic. Although this was to some extent embarrassing, she began to talk; and when they reached the hot-house he answered her questions about the flowers with old-fashioned politeness. By and by he glanced at a thermometer and pulling down a skylight turned to Carrie, who was looking at the patches of glowing color that broke the long banks of green.
"Beautiful things but fragile, and they have no smell," he said. "I suppose we grow them because they cost us much. The flowers of the bleak North are sweet."
By and by Jim came in and after a glance about exclaimed: "These are very fine!"
"You have an eye for color," Bernard remarked. "Their beauty's almost insolent; I don't know if it's strange that they are foul-feeders and thrive on rottenness. Sometimes I think I'd give them all for the cloudberry bloom I trampled on the moors when I was young. It feeds on the melting snow and opens its chaste white cup nearest the sky."
"You declared you were not a sentimentalist," said Jim.