“I only wish you had not expressed your dislike to or before me,” continued Mrs Greville. “I should have been only too glad to have been able to say that I had never heard of it when Alys Cheviott told me how it had distressed and disappointed her.”
“Did Alys speak of it?” said Mary, surprised and a little annoyed.
“Yes, to me—not to any one else. You need not be indignant at it, Mary. It came about quite naturally. You know I have seen a good deal of her this summer while you were all at Marshover. She seemed to like my going over there, and she has been very lonely, poor girl. That aunt of hers is such a goose! And one day she was asking me all about you, and she added quite naturally how much she wished you would sometimes go to see her.”
“But I was away,” pleaded Mary, not quite honestly.
“Yes, just then; but you had been at home quite long enough to go if you had wished, and that was Alys’s disappointment. She told me that almost her first thought, when everything was cleared up between Lilias and Captain Beverley, was, ‘And now I shall be able to see Mary,’ thinking, of course, that when you understood that Mr Cheviott’s dread had been altogether unselfish—fear of Arthur’s ruining himself by disobeying the will—you would at once lose your dislike to him.”
“And what does she now think?” asked Mary.
“She doesn’t know what to think. She fears that in some way Mr Cheviott has so deeply offended you that your dislike—prejudice—whatever it is—to him, is incurable.”
Again, for a moment, Mary was silent. Then she said, hesitatingly.
“Has she—do you think, Mrs Greville—said anything of this to Mr Cheviott?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs Greville. “But of course, my dear Mary, you cannot pretend to be so modest as to fancy that your staying away from them—from Alys, at least—in this marked way, cannot have attracted attention. After the service you did them—the great obligation you put them under to you, and Alys’s constantly expressed affection and gratitude—your refusing to go to her, when she couldn’t come to you, was a very strong measure. And, to speak plainly, unless you had the very strongest reasons for it, I think it was very unkind to that poor girl.”