“I heard,” she answered, “Aunt Aggie said you were very agreeable and amusing—I hope you’re happy in your rooms.”
“They’re all right.”
“We miss you. Father’s always beginning to tell you something and then finding that you’re gone. Henry—”
“Your Mother?”
“Ah, you were quite wrong about Mother. You thought that she disliked you. You care much too much, by the way, whether people like you or no. But Mother’s hard, perhaps, to get to know. You shocked and disturbed her a little, but she didn’t dislike you.”
Although he had asserted so definitely that Mrs. Trenchard hated him, he had reassured himself, in his own heart, that she rather liked him—now when he saw in spite of Katherine’s words that she really had disliked him, he felt a little shock of dismay.
“You may say what you like,” he said, “I know—”
“No, you don’t understand. Mother is so absorbed by all of us. There are a great many of us, you know—that it takes a long time for her to realise anyone from outside. You were so much from outside. She was just beginning to realise you when you went away. We are all so much to her. In a family as big as ours there are always so many things....”
“Of course,” he said, “I know. As to myself, it’s natural enough. At present I miss Moscow—but that will be all right soon.”
She came a little closer to him, and her eyes were so kindly that he looked down upon the ground lest his own eyes should betray him.