Mrs. Agar's face dropped. In some ways she was a child still, and a childish woman of fifty is as aggravating a creature as walks upon this earth. Dora remembered every word of the interview referred to, while Mrs. Agar had almost forgotten it. It is to the common-minded that common proverbs and sayings of the people apply. Hard words had not the power of breaking anything in Mrs. Agar's being.
“Of course,” she said, “I don't wish to talk about it, if you don't. It is most painful to me.”
She had dragged forward a second chair, only separated from that occupied by Dora by the tea-table.
“Arthur,” she said, with a lamentable assumption of cheerfulness, “has driven over to East Burgen to get some things I wanted. He will not be back for ever so long.”
She reflected that he was overdue at that moment, and that the butler had orders to send him to the library as soon as he returned.
“I was sorry to hear,” said Dora, quite naturally, “that he had not passed his examination.”
Mrs. Agar glanced at her cunningly; she was always looking for second meanings in the most innocent remarks, hardly guilty of an original meaning.
At this moment the door leading through a smaller library into the dining-room opened and Arthur came quietly in. He changed colour and hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he remembered that before all things a gentleman must be a gentleman. He came forward and held out his hand.
“How do you do?” he said, and for a moment he was quite dignified. “I am glad to see you here with mother. I did not know that I was going to interrupt a téte-à-téte, tea. No tea, thanks, mother; no.”
“Have you brought the things I wanted? You are earlier than I expected,” blurted out the lady of the house unskillfully.