Mrs. Pendyce pressed her lips together.
“But do you think he will?”
“Think—think who will? Think he will what? Why can't you express yourself, Margery? If George has really got us into this mess he must get us out again.”
Mrs. Pendyce flushed.
“He would never leave her in the lurch!”
The Squire said angrily:
“Lurch! Who said anything about lurch? He owes it to her. Not that she deserves any consideration, if she's been—— You don't mean to say you think he'll refuse? He'd never be such a donkey?”
Mrs. Pendyce raised her hands and made what for her was a passionate gesture.
“Oh, Horace!” she said, “you don't understand. He's in love with her!”
Mr. Pendyce's lower lip trembled, a sign with him of excitement or emotion. All the conservative strength of his nature, all the immense dumb force of belief in established things, all that stubborn hatred and dread of change, that incalculable power of imagining nothing, which, since the beginning of time, had made Horace Pendyce the arbiter of his land, rose up within his sorely tried soul.