The two paired off together, and Oliver's mother asked herself, for perhaps the thousandth time in the last three months, why she had allowed this—this friendship between her son and Laura Pavely to come about? It would have been so easy to arrange that she and her son should spend the summer abroad! When he had first come home there had been a talk of their going away together to Italy, or to France—France, which they had both loved when he was a clever, ardent, headstrong boy, with a strength of brain and originality of mind too big for his boyish boots.
But the harm, what harm there was—sometimes she hoped it was not so very much harm after all—had been done quickly. By the end of that first month at home, Oliver had lost all wish to leave Freshley.
In those early days—or was it that already he was being unconsciously hypocritical as men are wont to be when in such case as that in which he now found himself?—he had seemed to have formed an even closer friendship with Godfrey Pavely than with Godfrey Pavely's wife. They had even made a joint business expedition to town together, Godfrey as Oliver's guest, staying in one of those luxurious hotels which seem equally attractive to the millionaire and the adventurer. But Oliver had at last thrown off, when alone with his mother, any pretence of liking, far less of respecting, Godfrey Pavely. Yet when with the other man he still kept up the sinister fiction. She knew that.
The three sat down in the pretty, octagon-shaped dining-room, and the mother and son talked, Laura saying very little, and never giving, always accepting—in that sense, perhaps, an elemental woman after all! Even so, she showed, when she did rouse herself to express an opinion, that there was a good deal of thought and of intelligence in her small, beautiful head.
Mrs. Tropenell, sitting at the top of the oval table, told herself that in a primeval sense such a woman as Laura might well be the complement of such a man as was Oliver. He had strength, passion, idealism, enough to furnish forth half a dozen ordinary human beings. And he had patience too—patience which is but another name for that self-control in the secret things of passion which often brings men's desires to fruition. It was patience and self-control which had been so lacking in Godfrey Pavely during those early days when Laura had at least desired to fulfil her duty as a wife.
And yet again and again during that uncomfortable half-hour Mrs. Tropenell caught herself wishing that Godfrey Pavely was there, sitting on her right hand. Godfrey always had plenty to say for himself, especially in that house, and when he felt secure of the discretion of those about him, he would often tell much that he ought, in his character of banker, to have left unsaid. He knew the private business of every one, gentle or simple, for miles round, and took an easy, unaffected interest in it all. It was only when he touched on wider matters, especially on politics, that he grew unbearably tedious and prosy. But then the only person whom Mrs. Tropenell ever listened to with pleasure on such subjects was her old friend, Lord St. Amant, who always knew what he was talking about, and always salted what he knew with happy flashes of wit and humour.
Oliver accompanied the two ladies back into the drawing-room, and his mother did not know whether to be glad or sorry that she had not had a few minutes alone with the younger woman. Sometimes it seemed as if she and Laura never were alone together now. Was it possible that of late Laura was deliberately avoiding her? As this half suspicion came into Mrs. Tropenell's mind she looked up and saw her son's eyes fixed on her face.
There was something imperious, imploring, commanding, in the look he bent on her. She saw that he was willing her to go away—to leave him, alone, with Laura....
Under the spell of that look she got up. "I must go upstairs for my work," she said quietly. "And I have a letter to write too. I shan't be very long."