"The least bit in the world. For the moment."
"My dear John, if I didn't love your little girl I wouldn't care."
"Love her. Love her. She'll love you too, in her rum way. She's fighting you now. She wouldn't fight if she didn't feel she was beaten. Nobody could hold out against you long."
She looked at the clock.
"Heavens! I must go and dress."
She thought: "He didn't hold out against me, poor dear, five minutes.
I suppose he'll always remember that I jilted him for Robert."
And now he wanted her to see that if Anne's mother would be always Anne's mother, his wife would be always his wife. Was he desperately faithful, too? Always?
How could he have been? It was characteristic of Alice Severn that when she had to choose between her husband and her daughter she had chosen Anne. It was characteristic of John that when he had to choose between his wife and his Government, he had not chosen Alice. He must have had adventures out in India, conducted with the discretion becoming in a Commissioner and a Member of the Legislative Council, but adventures. Perhaps he was going back to one of them.
Severn dressed hastily and went into the schoolroom where Anne sat reading in her solitary hour between supper time and bed-time. He took her on his knee, and she snuggled there, rubbing her head against his shoulder. He thought of Adeline, teasing, teasing for the child's caresses, and every time repulsed.
"Anne," he said, "don't you think you can love Auntie Adeline?"