“What I would really have liked,” Thorpe confided to his sister now, “was to have had them both live with me. They would have been as welcome as the day is long. I could see, of course, in Alfred's case, that if he's set on being an artist, he ought to study abroad. Even the best English artists, he says, do that at the beginning. So it was all right for him to go. But Julia—it was different with her—I was rather keen about her staying. My wife was just as keen as I was. She took the greatest fancy to Julia from the very start—and so far as I could see, Julia liked her all right. In fact, I thought Julia would want to stay—but somehow she didn't.”
“She always spoke very highly of your wife,” Mrs. Dabney affirmed with judicial fairness. “I think she does like her very much.”
“Well then what did she want to hyke off to live among those Dutchmen for, when one of the best houses in England was open to her?” Thorpe demanded.
“You mustn't ask me,” her mother responded. Her tone seemed to carry the suggestion that by silence she could best protect her daughter's interests.
“I don't believe you know any more about it than I do,” was his impulsive comment.
“I daresay not,” she replied, with indifference. “Probably she didn't fancy living in so big a house—although heaven knows her ideas are big enough about most things.”
“Did she say so?” Thorpe asked abruptly.
The widow shook her head with dispassionate candour. “She didn't say anything to me about it, one way or the other. I formed my own impressions—that's all. It's a free country. Everybody can form their impressions.”
“I wish you'd tell me what you really think,” Thorpe urged her, mildly persuasive. “You know how fond I am of Julia, and how little I want to do her an injustice.”
“Oh, she wouldn't feel THAT way,” Louisa observed, vaguely. “If you ask me plain, I think it was dull for her.”