"Perhaps Laura and little Alice will come back with you to tea? Godfrey, too, if he seems in the humour for it," she said.
And he nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Tropenell. That would be very pleasant."
He smiled, a good-humoured, triumphant smile, and was gone.
The other two looked at each other rather doubtfully. And then Oliver, as if answering her thought, exclaimed, "I don't think he'll stay on at The Chase till Pavely comes out from Pewsbury! Apart from everything else, Gillie's a restless creature. We may see him again within a very short time from now."
"But supposing he and Godfrey do meet?" asked Mrs. Tropenell anxiously.
"Well, if they do meet, I think it's quite on the cards there'll be a furious row. But that, after all, would clear the air. As Gillie said just now, Godfrey Pavely will have to put the past behind him. Perhaps, once they've had it out, they'll be better friends. There's a good deal to be said for a row sometimes, mother."
"Yes," she said uncomfortably. "I agree, there is."
Laura was sitting in what was still known as "the boudoir," by the household of Lawford Chase. It was a beautiful and stately room, furnished some ninety years ago, at the time of the marriage of Mrs. Tropenell's grandmother. The late Mr. Pavely's tenants had not cared to use it, for it was away from the other living-rooms of the house, and so nothing in the boudoir had been disturbed or renewed when The Chase had been prepared for the occupation of the strangers who had lived there for fourteen years.
The room suited Laura, and Laura suited the room. To-day she had had a fire lit, for it was beginning to be chilly. Alice had gone off into Pewsbury to spend the afternoon with two little friends, and now the mistress of this lovely, old-world room was trying to read a book; but soon she let the book rest open on her lap, and she stared mournfully, hopelessly, into the fire.