"Well, I'll never say so again if you'll only leave off lamenting about Allan. He will have all the world before him when he comes back to England. Somewhere, no doubt there are love and sympathy, and beauty and youth waiting for him. When he knows that Suzette has made her choice, he will accept the inevitable, and fall in love with somebody else—not at Matcham."
There was the faintest touch of irritation in his reply. That incessant reference to Allan began to jar upon his nerves. Wherever he went, he had to answer the same questions—to explain how he wanted to come home and Allan wanted to go further away; and how for that reason only they had parted. He began to feel like Cain, and to sympathize with the first murderer.
But the worst was still to come. In the midst of a sonata of De Beriot's—long, brilliant, difficult—a tour de force for Suzette, whose fingers had not grappled with such music within the last two years, the door of the music-room was opened, and Lady Emily Carew was announced, just as upon that grey afternoon a month ago.
"Forgive me for descending upon you again in this way," she said hurriedly to Mrs. Wornock, who came from her seat by the window to receive the uninvited guest. "I couldn't rest after I received Miss Vincent's letter."
Nothing could have been colder than the "Miss Vincent," except the stately recognition of Suzette with which it was accompanied. "Mr. Wornock"—turning to Geoffrey, without even noticing his mother's outstretched hand—"why did you leave my son?"
"I thought Suzette had told you why we parted. He wished to go on. I wanted to come home. Is there anything extraordinary in that?"
"Yes. When two men go to an uncivilized country, full of dangers and difficulties, and when the third, their guide and leader, has been snatched away—surely it is very strange that they should part; very cruel of the one whose stronger will insisted upon parting."
"If you mean to imply that I had no right to come back to England without your son, I can only answer that you are very unjust. If you were a man, Lady Emily, I might be tempted to express my meaning in stronger language."
"Oh, it is easy enough for you to answer me, if you can satisfy your own conscience; if you can answer to yourself for leaving your friend and comrade helpless and alone."
"Was he more helpless than I? We parted in the centre of Africa. If I chose the easier and shorter route homeward, that route was just as open to him as to me. It was his own choice to go down the Congo River. No doubt his next letter, whenever it may reach you, will tell you all you can want to know as to his reasons for taking that route. When I offered myself as your son's companion, I accepted no apprenticeship. I was tired of Africa; he wasn't. There was no compact between us. I was under no bond to stay with him. He may choose to spend his life there, as Cecil Patrington chose, practically. I wanted to come home."