Lady Anne sometimes sighed a little, as she watched the two go off together for a long morning on the river, or down to the tennis-court, accompanied, on occasion, by Claire Latimer and Nick to make up the set. But she held her peace. She was no believer in direct outside interference as a means towards the unravelment of a love tangle, and all that it was possible to do, indirectly, she had attempted when she revealed to Jean the history of Blaise’s marriage.
She did, however, make a proposal which would have the effect of breaking through the present trend of affairs and of throwing Blaise and Jean more or less continuously into each other’s company. She was worldly wise enough to give its due value to the power of propinquity, and her innocently proffered suggestion that she and her two sons and Jean should all run up to London for a week, before the season closed, was based on the knowledge of how much can be accomplished by the skilful handling of a partie carrée.
The suggestion was variously received. By Blaise, indifferently; by Jean, with her natural desire to know more of the great city she had glimpsed en route augmented by the knowledge that a constant round of sight-seeing and entertainment would be a further aid towards the process of forgetting; by Nick, the sun of whose existence rose and set at Charnwood, with open rebellion.
“Why go to be baked in London, madonna, when we might remain here in the comparative coolth of the country?” he murmured plaintively to his mother.
They were alone at the moment, and Lady Anne regarded him with twinkling eyes.
“Frankly, Nick, because I want Jean for my daughter-inlaw. No other reason in the world. Personally, as you know, I simply detest town during the season.”
He laughed and kissed her.
“What a Machiavelli in petticoats! I’d never have believed it of you, madonna. S’elp me, I wouldn’t!”
“Well, you may. And you’ve got to back me up, Nick. No philandering with Jean, mind! You’ll leave her severely alone and content yourself with the company of your aged parent.”
“Aged fiddlestick!” he jeered. “If it weren’t for that white hair of yours, I’d tote you round as my youngest sister. ‘And I don’t believe”—severely—“that it is white, really. I believe your maid powders it for you every morning, just because you were born in sin and know that it’s becoming.”