His manner had become almost boisterously jocose. Casting out the last remnant of pity, he cast out the last remnant of fear of her even in her present heightened prettiness. He came round behind the sofa and perched himself on the back of it, sitting sideways, looking down at her flushed, expectant, unimportant little face, and quite jauntily swinging his leg.
"You'll not forget to tell them about the broken glass?" he queried, parenthetically, "or you'll have somebody getting badly cut. As to my alternative plan now, Mrs. Gwynnie, I have been thinking things over too; and I feel, like you, they can't very well continue as they are. This Robin's Rest arrangement, which served its purpose well enough at first, is pretty thoroughly played out. We may regret that, but it is. And, to tell you the truth, Mrs. Gwyn, I have been troubled by some little qualms of conscience lately. Beattie's affairs have been on my mind a lot."
"Beattie, Beattie?" she broke in, shrilly. "What on earth has Bee to do with it?"
"The question is not so much what Beattie has to do with it"—laying stress on the last word—"as what it has to do with Beattie," Challoner returned, in a benevolent, heavy-father tone. "In my opinion she has been a mighty good little sister to you, and she must be mortally tired of keeping her eyes shut and playing gooseberry by this time. I see no reason why her prospects should be sacrificed. She's a perfect right to a look in of her own, poor girl."
The answer to the above might appear obvious. But Challoner gauged the mental caliber of the person he dealt with. Mrs. Spencer's shallow, trivial, fair-weather nature was ill-adapted to meet any great crisis. Her small brain worked slowly, and with a permanent inclination toward the irrelevant and indirect. He counted upon these defects of perception and logic, and he was not disappointed.
"But—but, when I marry," she said, essaying not very successfully to practise her little laugh, "I always meant to make it a condition that Bee should share my home."
"Very nice and thoughtful. Quite right of you," Challoner replied, still benevolently jocose. "Only I was talking about Beattie's matrimonial projects just now, not about yours, you see. And you are to blame, Mrs. Gwyn. You have been careless. I don't want to pile on the agony, but you have been most awfully careless. There is ever so much gossip going round. I am afraid people are beginning to look just a little askance. And what reflects on you reflects on your sister. I have taken the trouble to make inquiries, and, from all I hear, Fred Lawley is a very decent young fellow and will come into some money when his grandfather dies. He is second officer now, and stands well for promotion. The pay is above the average, too, on that Cape line. His people are in a good position; quite gentlefolk, a solid old clerical family—one of his uncles a canon of some cathedral or other, I forget which. It would be a first-class marriage for Beattie. But you cannot expect people like that to be best pleased at his taking up with a girl out of such a queer stable as—well, as this one, Mrs. Gwyn. Therefore I do not think I should be acting in your sister's interests if I renewed the lease of this house for you."
"I see that," she said, her aspect brightening. "I see what you are coming round to. How you have thought it all out! I see—of course—go on."
"I shall not renew the lease of this house," he repeated, slowly, "but I propose you and Miss Beattie shall move, bag and baggage, to Marychurch, where—"
"Marychurch? Why? I thought you meant Heatherleigh! Why? Do you want to get rid of us? Oh!" she gasped, "oh!"