He retained her fingers in his clasp.
“Heaven knows I don’t mean to do so in the least, mother dear,” he said. “But you, and Elise too,” with a little smile towards her, “are not the sort of women to respect a man less for wishing to guard his independence, for wishing to feel that he is doing some work in the world, earning enough at least not to feel himself a fainéant.”
“There is always useful work to do,” said Elise, “though, perhaps, the most useful to others does not directly repay the doer of it. Look at Conrad, how he devotes his time to our tenants, and the many dependent on us.”
“Of course,” said Horace, “and he is quite right, but the positions are perfectly different. I want to feel—well—” he stopped, and, getting up, strolled towards the window. The two ladies exchanged glances. Then Elise, by a gesture, made her mother-in-law understand that she thought it would be better for her herself to leave the room; but Mrs Littlewood negatived the suggestion in the same way. And in a moment or two, Horace came back again and took up his position by the fire.
“It’s really too bad of me,” he said, “to be entertaining you with all this talk about myself.”
“No, my dear boy,” said his mother, “but I just wish I understood you a little better.”
“You are rather enigmatical, you know,” said Elise. “If it were not—” but here she hesitated.
“Go on,” said Horace smiling, and, as this was followed by no hint of caution from his mother, Elise did go on.
“After all, it was something silly I was going to say!” the younger woman continued, “for I know you have been quite out of the way of anything of the kind for ever so long, but except for that, I was going to say I should almost have suspected it was a case of the ‘not impossible she’ with you!”
Mrs Littlewood glanced up, for her, nervously at her son. He was quite calm and apparently in no way annoyed by his sister-in-law’s speech.