She was impelled to say what she said next by his words, which excited her. "I can't tell you—and perhaps I ought not—how happy you make me by loving Lancelot. I love him so very much—and James never has. I can't make out why; but it was so from the beginning. That was the first thing which made me unhappy in my life at home. It was the beginning of everything. He seemed to lose interest in me when he found me so devoted."
Urquhart said nothing immediately. Then he spoke slowly. "Macartney is uneasy with boys because he's uneasy with himself. He is only really interested in one thing, and he can see that they are obviously uninterested in it."
"You mean—?" she began, and did not finish.
"I do," said Urquhart. "Most men are like that at bottom—only some of us can impose ourselves upon our neighbours more easily than he can. Half the marriages of the world break on that rock, and the other half on idleness."
She then confessed. "Do you know what I believe in my heart? I believe that James's eyeglass stands in his way with Lancelot—as it certainly did with me."
"I think you are right there," he agreed. "But you must allow for it. He's very uncertain of his foothold, and that's his war armour."
She was more tolerant of James after that conversation, and less mutinous against her lot. She wondered, of course, what was to become of them, how long she could hold him at arms' length, how she could bring herself to unsay what had been said in the dark of Martley Thicket. But she had boundless faith in Urquhart, and knew, among other things, that any request she made him would be made easy for her.
But when, at the end of June, he broached to her his great scheme, she was brought face to face with the situation, and had to ask herself, could she be trusted? That he could she knew very well.
He had a project for a month or six weeks in Norway. He had hinted at it when she was at Martley, but now it was broached. He didn't disguise it that his interest lay wholly in her coming. He laid it before her: she, Lancelot and James were to be the nucleus. He should ask the Corbets and their boys, Vera and hers. Nugent would refuse, he knew. Meantime, what did she say? He watched her shining eyes perpending, saw the gleam of anticipated delight. What a plan! But then she looked down, hesitating. Something must now be said.
"Oh, of course Lancelot would go mad with joy, and I dare say I could persuade James—"