Emboldened by his silence, and the fact that his face was hidden from her, she continued her small flow of remonstrance, undermining herself more completely with each fresh word.
"It was all very well while you were a bachelor for you to go throwing your life and your money about so foolishly. But now it's different; and I don't think you have a right to do it any more. Where's the good of us trying so hard to live on our pay, if it's only to be flung about to help subalterns who don't try at all? You can't cure Mr Denvil of being casual; and for all your generosity, you'll probably find him in just as bad a hole again by this time next year."
The words stung him to sharp retort.
"I never asked for your opinion of the Boy, Evelyn; and you seem to forget that he has given me his word."
"Oh, no doubt he has! It's easy enough to make promises when one's unhappy; but it isn't so easy to keep them when things get smooth again." And she nodded her head wisely, for her conviction sprang from the depths of personal experience.
Her husband rose and walked to the verandah's edge. Here he remained standing, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his Norfolk coat, his eyes fixed absently on the last gleam of light in the west, where all that now remained of the sunset's stormy splendour was a handful of filmy fragments, like rose petals dropped from some Olympian rose-bush, and the sickle of a young moon, outrivalled by the mellow radiance of the evening star. The snows lay dead and cold, awaiting the resurrection of dawn. Their chill pallor struck at his heart in a manner new to him.
Evelyn studied his eloquent outline with a mild surprise. She was not a little proud of her valiant protest against his mistaken ideas; and he was surely not foolish enough to be annoyed because she had talked practical commonsense.
She went to him at last, and lightly touched his arm.
"You look as solemn as a funeral, Theo! Why don't you speak?"