"I owe you a lot of kindness," he muttered. "I used not to be grateful, but I am grateful, now. We'll get Laura and mother off—and then you'll tell me what I have to know."
CHAPTER XXVIII
MRS. TROPENELL stood by the window of the pretty, old-fashioned sitting-room which she had now occupied for over a week, and which she knew would be, in a special sense, her own room, after she had became Lady St. Amant.
She was already dressed for the drive home with Laura Pavely. It was nearly twelve o'clock, and the car would be round in a few minutes. But she was waiting on, up here, for her son, for after breakfast Oliver had said casually: "I'll come up to your room for a moment, mother—I mean before you start for Freshley."
She looked round the room consideringly. Nothing in it had been altered for something like fifty years. Above the Italian marble chimney-piece was a good portrait, in oils, of Lord St. Amant's father, and on either side of the fireplace were crayon drawings of St. Amant as a little boy, and of his two sisters as little girls. Everything here epitomised the placid, happy life of the good and fortunate woman who had been Lord St. Amant's mother.
But the pretty, old-fashioned, peaceful-looking room told also of the strange transience of human life. With the exception of that early Victorian crayon drawing of the stalwart little boy, almost everything in the nature of a relic or memento spoke of some human being long dead.
Mrs. Tropenell felt curiously at peace. There was something almost final about the feeling which possessed her. Up to last night she had been anxious, restless, full of a secret, painful doubt as to whether she was doing right in marrying Lord St. Amant.
But now, this morning, her doubts had gone, partly owing to a very trifling thing, a quick perception of how well St. Amant and Oliver got on together—now. She had been alone with them at breakfast, and they had talked eagerly together, passing quickly from one subject to another, with no intervals of silence. When, at last, Oliver had got up, St. Amant also had risen, and put his arm with an affectionate gesture round the younger man's shoulder, and she had caught a strange look, a look of moved gratitude, on Oliver's dark face....
She had dreaded telling her son of her resolve—but the dread had left her, and she made up her mind to tell him this morning—not to wait, as she had half thought of doing, till he was at home again.