It was only at night, when Ally's brain slept among its dreams, that Rowcliffe's face leaned near to hers without ever touching it, and his arms made as if they clasped her and never met. Even then, always at the first intangible approach of him, she woke, terrified because dreams go by contraries.
"Is your sister always so silent?" Rowcliffe asked that Wednesday (the
Wednesday when Ally had been caught).
He was alone with Mary.
"Who? Ally? No. She isn't silent at all. What do you think of her?"
"I think," said Rowcliffe, "she looks extraordinarily well."
"That's owing to you," said Mary. "I never saw her pull round so fast before."
"No? I assure you," said Rowcliffe, "I haven't anything to do with it." He was very stiff and cold and stern.
Rowcliffe was annoyed because it was two Wednesdays running that he had found himself alone with the eldest and the youngest Miss Cartaret. The second one had gone off heaven knew where.
XXI
The Vicar of Garth considered himself unhappy (to say the least of it) in his three children, but he had never asked himself what, after all, would he have done without them? After all (as they had frequently reminded themselves), without them he could never have lived comfortably on his income. They did the work and saved him the expenses of a second servant, a housekeeper, an under-gardener, an organist and two curates.