'Have you ever really asked yourself, Willy, how it will look to the outside world—what people will think? It is all very well to scoff at Mrs. Grundy, but the poor child has no natural guardian. We both agree her sister is no use to her.'
'Let them think!'—he turned to her again with energy—'so long as you and I know. Besides—I shan't compromise her in any way. I shall be most careful not to do so.'
'Look at this room!' said Hester drily. She herself surveyed it.
Farrell's laugh had a touch of embarrassment.
'Well?—mayn't anyone give things to a sick child? Hush!—here she is!'
He drew further back into the room, and they both watched a little figure in a serge dress crossing the footbridge beyond the garden. Then she came into the garden, and up the sloping lawn, her hat dangling in her hand, and the spring sunshine upon her. Hester thought of the preceding June; of the little bride, with her springing step, and radiant eyes. Nelly, as she was now, seemed to her the typical figure—or rather, one of the two typical figures of the war—the man in action, the woman in bereavement. Sorrow had marked her; bitten into her youth, and blurred it. Yet it had also dignified and refined her. She was no less lovely.
As she approached, she saw them and waved to them. Farrell went to the sitting-room door to meet her, and it seemed both to him and Hester that in spite of her emaciation and her pallor, she brought the spring in with her. She had a bunch of willow catkins and primroses in her hand, and her face, for all its hollow cheeks and temples, shewed just a sparkle of returning health.
It was clear that she was pleased to see Farrell. But her manner of greeting him now was very different from what it had been in the days before her loss. It was much quieter and more assured. His seniority—there were nineteen years between them—his conspicuous place in the world, his knowledge and accomplishment, had evidently ceased to intimidate her. Something had equalised them.
But his kindness could still make her shy.
Half-way across the room, she caught sight of a picture, on an easel, both of which Farrell had brought with him.
'Oh!—-' she said, and stopped short, looking from it to him.