“Had I been sent away, Constance would have remained at home,” he said. “I am not speaking out of irritation, but only to understand it fully. It is not as if I were finding fault with Constance; but you see for yourself she could not stand me all the year round. A fellow who has always to be thinking about the thermometer is trying.”
“My dear boy,” said Lady Markham, “everything is trying. The thermometer is much less offensive than most things that men care for. Girls are brought up in that fastidious way: you all like them to be so, and to think they have refined tastes, and so forth; and then you are surprised when you find they have a little difficulty—— Constance was only fanciful, that was all—impatient.”
“Fanciful,” he repeated. “That was what the little one said. I wish she were fanciful, and not so horribly well and strong.”
“My dear Claude,” said Lady Markham quickly, “you would not like that at all! A delicate wife is the most dreadful thing—one that you would always have to be considering; who could not perhaps go to the places that suited you; who would not be able to go out with you when you wanted her. I don’t insist upon a daughter of mine: but not that, not that, for your own sake, my dear boy!”
“I believe you are right,” he said, with a look of conviction. “Then I suppose the only thing to be done is to wait for a little and see how things turn out. There is no hurry about it, you know.”
“Oh, no hurry!” she said, with uneasy assent. “That is, if you are not in a hurry,” she added after a pause.
“No, I don’t think so. I am rather enjoying myself, I think. It always does one good,” he said, getting up slowly, “to come and have it out with you.”
Lady Markham said “Dear boy!” once more, and gave him her hand, which he kissed; and then his audience was over. He went away; and she turned round to her writing-table to the inevitable correspondence. There was a little cloud upon her forehead so long as she was alone; but when another knock came at the door, it cleared by magic as she said “Come in.” This time it was Sir Thomas who appeared. He was a tall man, with grey hair, and had the air of being very carefully brushed and dressed. He came in, and seated himself where Claude had been, but pushed back the chair from the fire.
“Don’t you think,” he said, “that you keep your room a little too warm?”
“Claude complained that it was cold. It is difficult to please everybody.”