They moved slowly homeward in the late autumn, loitering beside the great Swiss lakes till the October mists began to make Pilatus invisible and to hang low over the steep gables of Lucerne. They lingered under Mr. Hauser’s hospitable roof so long that the great black St. Bernard lifted his head and howled an agonizing farewell when the carriage drove off to the station with Eve and her husband. That leonine beast was sagacious enough to know that the trunks and travelling-bags and bustle of departure meant something more than the daily drive, and that he was to see these kind friends no more, and eat no more sweet biscuits out of Eve’s soft white hands.
It was late in October when they found themselves among the pine woods and hillocks of Hampshire, and insignificant as the hills were there was pleasure in feeling one’s self at home. Eve’s mother-in-law was at Merewood to receive them, and to make much of her son’s wife, whom she found thinner and more fragile-looking than when she left for the Riviera, but with all the beauty and brightness which had captivated her lover. Mrs. Vansittart’s welcome had in it more of affection than she had ever given her son’s wife in the past.
“I think you are beginning to love me,” Eve said, too sensitive not to feel the change.
“My dear child, I always loved you.”
“Only a very little,” argued Eve. “You liked me pretty well in the abstract, I dare say, but you did not care for me as Mrs. John Vansittart. It was very natural. You had your own favourites, any one of whom you would have liked Jack to marry; dear, nice girls who always wear tidy frocks, play the ‘Lieder ohne Worte,’ and visit the poor. I was altogether a detrimental.”
“It was not you, Eve—only your people.”
“My people—meaning my father. Yes, he was a stumbling-block, no doubt—a man who had gone down in the world, and about whom malevolent people said cruel things. Well, he has not been obtrusive, has he? He has kept himself in the background.”
“My dear, he has been admirable, and your sisters, when I came to know them and understand them, proved altogether unobjectionable. We saw a good deal of each other while you were away.”
“Sophy told me how kind you had been. Yes, they are good girls. Their faults are all on the surface. But the flower of the flock is gone—the brightest and the most loving. She was all love.”