“There’s no chance of that; there has been a quarrel,” said Alice, looking down on the threadbare carpet.
“Well, darling, remember, if it should come to that—I mean if he should be advised to go away for a little, remember that your home is at Oulton. He’ll not stay away very long, but if you accept my offer, the longer the happier for me. You are to come over to Oulton, you understand, and to bring old Dulcibella; and I only wish that you had been a few years married that we might set up a little nursery in that dull house. I think I should live ten years longer if I had the prattle and laughing, and pleasant noise of children in the old nursery, the same nursery where my poor dear George ran about, sixty years ago nearly, when he was a child. We should have delightful times, you and I, and I’d be your head nurse.”
“My darling, I think you are an angel,” said Alice, with a little laugh, and throwing her arms about her she wept on her thin old neck, and the old lady, weeping also happy and tender tears, patted her shoulder gently in that little silence.
“Well, Alice, you’ll remember, and I’ll write to your husband as well as to you, for this kind of invitation is never attended to, and you would think nothing of going away and leaving your old auntie to shift for herself; and if you will come it will be the kindest thing you ever did, for I’m growing old and strangers don’t amuse me quite as much as they did, and I really want a little home society to exercise my affections and prevent my turning into a selfish old cat.”
So the tea came in and they sipped it to the accompaniment of their little dialogue, and time glided away unperceived, and the door opened and Charles Fairfield, in his careless fishing costume, entered the room.
He glanced at Alice a look which she understood; her visitor also perceived it; but Charles had not become a mere Orson in this wilderness, so he assumed an air of welcome.
“We are so glad to see you here, Lady Wyndale, though, indeed, it ain’t easy to see any one, the room is so dark. It was so very good of you to come this long drive to see Alice.”
“I hardly hoped to have seen you,” replied the old lady, “for I must go in a minute or two more, and—I’m very frank, and you won’t think me rude, but I have learned everything, and I know that I ought not to have come without a little more circumspection.”
He laughed a little, and Alice thought, as well as the failing light enabled her to see, that he looked very pale, as, laughing, he fixed for a moment a hard look on her.
“All is not a great deal,” he said, not knowing very well what to say.