“I was coming to that,” said Harry Garlett quickly. “I’m going away for a long holiday—certainly till Christmas, perhaps longer. But I’m keeping the household here together, and I’ve been wondering whether your brother would come and stay at the Thatched House as my guest, at any rate through the summer.”
She shook her head.
“I think I ought to tell you, Mr. Garlett, that his coming here is out of the question. I’m afraid, nay, I’m certain, that he was the man Lucy Warren let into the drawing room that night——”
A look of anger and disgust flashed into his face. So she had succeeded in rousing him at last?
She sighed, a weary, listless sigh.
“As I think I told you long ago, my brother’s one real interest in life is what he calls ‘falling in love’—and always with some entirely unsuitable person.”
Harry Garlett softened; he remembered very well his surprise when she had first told him about the unprincipled sickly brother whom she yet loved so dearly, and of whom she was, in a sense, proud.
“I feel grieved,” he said feelingly, “that you have this real anxiety always with you; I wish I could help you with it.”
“No one can help me with it. I knew he was bound to get into a scrape with some woman here.”
“What an extraordinary way to go on!”