"Yes, my daughter and I were there in the summer."
Harry paused. It would be harder than he expected, and where was the daughter?
"Cambridge is very pleasant in the summer?" he asked, his resolution weakening rapidly before her impassivity.
"My daughter and I found it so. But, of course, it depends——"
It depended, he reflected, on such people as his son—boys whom they could cheat at their ease. He had no doubt at all now that the mother was an adventuress of the common, melodrama type. He suspected the girl of being the same. It made things in some ways much simpler, because money would, probably, settle everything; there would be no question of fine feelings. He knew exactly how to deal with such women, he had known them in New Zealand; but he was amused as he contemplated Clare's certain failure—such a woman was entirely outside her experience.
He came to the point at once.
"My being here is easily explained. I learn, Mrs. Feverel, that my son formed an attachment for your daughter during last summer. He wrote some letters now in your daughter's possession. His family are naturally anxious that those letters should be returned. I have come to see what can be done about the matter." He paused—but she said nothing, and remained motionless by the fire.
"Perhaps," he said slowly, "you would prefer, Mrs. Feverel, to name a possible price yourself?"
Afterwards, on looking back, he felt that his expectations had been perfectly justified; she had, up to that point, given him every reason to take the line that he adopted. She had listened to the first part of his speech without remark; she must, he reflected afterwards, have known what was coming, yet she had given no sign that she heard.
And so the change in her was startling and took him utterly by surprise.