Lingard felt as if he must get out, away from these horrible people. When he had last seen the Paches, Patty had been a pretty little girl, pert perhaps, but not too much so in the eyes of the young, indulgent soldier. He now judged her with scant mercy.
"I don't think Athena could very well help what happened," said Tom Pache judicially. He and his father generally took the same side. "Bayworth Kaye had the run of Rede Place since he was born. And so—well, I don't suppose it took very long for the mischief to be done—so far as he was concerned, I mean."
"Oh, but, Tom, it was much more than that! Athena could have helped it—of course she could!" Patty's voice rose. "Why, she got him asked to a lot of houses where she was staying herself, and they say in the village that she gave him her key of the Garden Room. He used to stay there fearfully late—long after Mr. Maule and Dick Wantele had gone to bed!"
"It was very hard on Mabel Digby," said Mrs. Pache irrelevantly. She had a tepid liking for her young neighbour.
"I don't think Mabel really cared for him, mother." There was a streak of thin loyalty in Patty Pache's nature. "You know she was almost a child when Bayworth Kaye first went to India."
"She was seventeen," said Mrs. Pache, "very nearly eighteen. And I know they wrote to one another by every mail—his mother told me so."
"It's rather hard on the women of the neighbourhood, when one comes to think of it," said Tom Pache, smiling in the darkness. "Athena's a formidable rival." His mother and his sister felt that he spoke more truly than he knew.
"There's only one person," cried Patty suddenly, "who's never been in love with Athena! And it's so odd, because he's always with her—I mean Dick Wantele."
"My dear child, how you let your tongue run on," said her mother reprovingly. "You seem to forget that Athena is a married woman!" In another, a more natural, tone she added: "And then Dick Wantele, as you know perfectly well, has always been attached to——"
Her husband gave her a violent shove and she did not finish her sentence. They had all forgotten the large, silent, alien presence of Hew Lingard.