And now the fishing and the trip were things of the past. They had not turned out as delightful in reality as in anticipation somehow, and yet what had gone wrong Despard, on looking back, found it hard to say. That nothing had gone wrong was the truth of the matter. The weather had been fine and favourable; the party had been well chosen; Lennox-Brown, the yacht’s owner, was the perfection of a host.
“It was a case of the workman, not of the tools, I suspect,” Despard said to himself one morning, when, strolling slowly up and down the smooth bit of gravel path outside the drawing-room windows at Markerslea Vicarage, he allowed his thoughts to wander backwards some little way. “I am sick of it all,” he went on, with an impatient shake, testifying to inward discomposure. “I’m a fool after all, no wiser, indeed a very great deal more foolish, than my neighbours. And I’ve been hard enough upon other fellows in my time. Little I knew! I cannot throw it off, and what to do I know not.”
He was staying with his sister, his only near relation. She was older than he, had been married for several years, and had but one trouble in life. She was childless. Naturally, therefore, she lavished on Despard an altogether undue amount of sisterly devotion. But she was by no means an entirely foolish woman. She had helped to spoil him, and she was beginning to regret it.
“He is terribly, quite terribly blasé,” she was saying to herself as she watched him this morning, herself unobserved. “I have never seen it so plainly as this autumn,” and she sighed. “He is changed, too; he is moody and irritable, and that is new. He has always been so sweet-tempered. Surely he has not got into money difficulties—I can scarcely think so. He is too sensible. Though, after all, as Charles often says, perhaps the best thing that could befall the poor boy would be to have to work hard for his living—” a most natural remark on the part of “Charles,” seeing that he himself had always enjoyed a thoroughly comfortable sufficiency,—and again Mrs Selby sighed.
Her sigh was echoed; she started slightly, then, glancing round, she saw that the glass door by which she stood was ajar, and that her brother had arrested his steps for a moment or two, and was within a couple of yards of her. It was his sigh that she had heard. Her face clouded over still more; it is even probable that a tear or two rose unbidden to her eyes. She was a calm, considering woman as a rule; for once she yielded to impulse, and, stepping out, quickly slipped her hand through Mr Norreys’ arm.
“My dear Despard,” she said, “what a sigh! It sounded as if from the very depths of your heart, if,” she went on, trying to speak lightly, “if you have one that is to say, which I have sometimes doubted.”
But he threw back no joke in return.
“I have never given you reason to doubt it, surely, Maddie?” he said half reproachfully.
“No, no, dear. I’m in fun, of course. But seriously—”
“I’m serious enough.”