"No," Honoria said.
"You are really quite contented about her, then?"
The question both surprised and touched his hearer as a friendly and gracious admission that she possessed certain rights.
"Oh dear, yes," she said. "I am more than contented about her. No one can fail to be so who, loving her, sees her now. There was just one thing she wanted. Now she has it, and so all is well."
"What one thing?" Dickie asked, with a hint of irony in his manner and his voice.
"Why, you—you, Richard," Honoria said.
She drew herself up proudly, a little alarmed by, a little defiant of, the directness of her own speech, perceiving, so soon as she had uttered it, that it might be construed as indirect reproach. And to administer reproach had been very far from her purpose. She fixed her eyes upon the domes of the great oaks, crowning an outstanding knoll at the far end of the lime avenue. The foliage of them, deep green shading to russet, was arrestingly solid and metallic, offering a rather magnificent scheme of stormy colour taken in connection with the hot purple of the uprolling cloud. Framed by the stone work of the open window, the whole presented a fine picture in the manner of Salvator Rosa. A few, bright raindrops splashed and splattered, and the thunder growled far away in the north. The atmosphere was heavy. For a time neither spoke. Then Honoria said, gently, as one asking a favour:—
"Richard, will you tell me about that home of yours? Cousin Katherine was speaking of it to me last night."
And it seemed to her his thought must have journeyed to some far distance, and found difficulty in returning thence, it was so long before he answered her, while his face had become set, and showed colourless as wax against the surrounding crimson of the room.
"Oh, the home!" he exclaimed, shrugging his shoulders just perceptibly. "It doesn't amount to very much. My mother in her dear unwisdom of faith and hope magnifies the value of it. It's just an idle man's fad."