She ignored that. Angela was terribly in earnest. “He is very intense. He is strong too. And with all his strength he has desired two things intensely. Hugh, his own brother, has thwarted him in one; Richard Bransby in the other. One we can’t give him. The other we can. And we are going to—you and I.” She held out her hand in “good-by,” but Latham knew she meant it even more in compact.
He was thoughtful all his way back to Deep Dale, and silent at dinner.
Undressing for sleep—if sleep came—he looked at his red rose with an odd rueful smile, and put it carefully in water.
At that moment Angela Hilary laughed softly as she let her dark hair fall free to the white hem of her nightgown. Then she threw a kiss to herself in the mirror.
The first thing Latham saw the next morning when he woke was a deep crimson rose. He lay very still for a long time watching it.
CHAPTER XVI
Morton Grant had delivered his sorry news on Monday. Dr. Latham had lunched with Mrs. Hilary on Wednesday.
Thursday was bleak and cold, and a slow chilly rain fell all day.
Helen and her father were alone in the library when the brothers joined them. She felt that her father meant to “have it out” then, and she was glad. For him and for her the tension was already too cruel. And it was Hugh’s due to know, and to know without longer delay. Once or twice she had felt that she herself must tell him. But the girlish lips he had kissed refused the words and the office; and she had an added instinct of reticence, part a reluctance to tale-bear, part a hurt, angry determination to leave her father to do his own “dirty work.”
“Stephen says you want to have a chat with me, Uncle Dick.”