The neutrality of her previous conversation with him had vanished as completely as the strange suggestion with which it had ended had vanished. The old defiance, apparently entirely uncalled-for, rang in her elaborately indifferent voice.
“Is it so old a story?” said Falconer. “Or is it, perhaps, a mistake?” he added with genuine regret. “I hope not. A sensible marriage is such a safeguard—a covenant with society. I heard of your son’s engagement some three weeks ago on what purported to be excellent authority.”
“Did you hear the name of the young lady by any chance?”
Mrs. Romayne achieved a harsh little laugh as she spoke.
Falconer glanced round the room and lowered his voice.
“Miss Maud Pomeroy!” he said. “A most desirable wife for him, I should have said!”
Eight months before, under the inexplicable influence of the face and manner of the pale, dignified woman who had faced him so bravely in the little lodging in Camden Town, Dennis Falconer had been almost ready to urge upon Julian Romayne marriage with the girl he was supposed to have ruined. But he would have done so convinced, in the recesses of his heart to which that woman’s influence could not penetrate, that such a course must mean ruin to the young man; and in the grim severity of his mental attitude at the time, he would have said that such ruin was the just and righteous consequence of the young man’s guilt. Clemence’s disappearance had frustrated the possibility of any such action on his part; time and the pressing actualities of his own life had obliterated the impression made on him; and the whole affair had gradually faded into the past. Insensibly to himself he looked upon it now, conventionally enough, as one of those dark episodes which are in no way to be obliterated or lightened, but which may and must be overlaid. To that end it seemed to him, in the relaxation of his sterner attitude, a thing so natural as to be necessarily condoned that Julian should marry in his own class and settle down.
A moment’s pause followed on his words. Mrs. Romayne was sweeping the room with her eye-glasses. The hand which held them shook a little, and, if the man beside her could have known it, she saw absolutely nothing.
“Maud Pomeroy!” she said at last, and she seemed to be unconscious of that moment’s interval of silence. “Ah! Well, to tell you the truth, that is not such an extraordinary report, though it hardly represents the fact—at present. Young people will be young people, you know, and they must be allowed their little wilfulnesses!”