And his mother knew quite well her boy’s attitude of mind, and bowed to his will, as she had bowed to his father’s while he was alive.
CHAPTER XV
“STRONG IN WAR, BUT WEAK IN LOVE”
Alone with Mrs. Barrimore in the dimly-lighted drawing-room, Colonel Lane did not begin to press his suit as might be imagined. He had accepted her decree as final.
They sat at a little distance from each other, she on a low couch, and he in a basket-chair. A table, on which stood a pink-shaded lamp, was between them. He began to speak of Phyllis.
“I wish the child would confide in you, dear Mrs. Barrimore,” he said. “She gives me no confidence. It is probably my fault, but I do my best. It seems to me that it is a woman’s work. I am only a grim old soldier.”
“Phyllis has probably nothing to confide,” Mrs. Barrimore told him soothingly. “Young, innocent girls like Phyllis don’t have weighty secrets.”
“Yet I have a suspicion that Phyllis is hiding something,” said the Colonel uneasily.
“What could she have to hide?” inquired his companion.
“That’s just it—what?” answered the Colonel. “She made a terrible fuss when I would not allow her to become engaged to young Arbuthnot, but she got over it with surprising quickness. It would never have done—that engagement, you know—for Phyllis will be in and out of love a dozen times yet. I am sorry for the man, though, for he was in earnest, and he is gone out to quell a native rising and may lose his life. A fine soldier, young Arbuthnot! If Phyllis had stuck to her guns, I might have given my consent when he came back—if he ever did, poor fellow! But she has apparently got over it already. I hoped she had reverted to Langridge, but no! She began flirting with young Webster almost at once. She has been somewhere to-day and won’t say where.”
“That is the spirit of mischief in her,” said Mrs. Barrimore. “She likes to tease. She told me where she had been. She went over and saw Philip.”