“But—it would cost too much trouble?”
“Perhaps; and I am not an impassioned sort of man. Lady Markham, was it really from me that Constance ran away?”
“I have told you before, Claude, that was not how it should be spoken of. She did not run away. She took into her head a romantic idea of making acquaintance with her father, in which Markham encouraged her. Or perhaps it was Markham that put it into her head. It is possible—I can’t tell you—that Markham had already something else in his own head, and that he had begun to think it would be a good thing to try if other changes could be made.”
“What could Markham have in his head? and what changes——”
“Oh,” she cried, “how can you ask me? I know how you have all been talking. You speculate, just as I do.”
“I don’t think so, Lady Markham,” said Claude. “I am sure Markham would find all that sort of thing a great bore. Of course I know what you mean. But I don’t think so. I have always told them my opinion. Whatever may happen, Markham will stick to you.”
“Poor Markham!” she said, with a quick revulsion of feeling. “After all, it is a little hard, is it not, that he should have nothing brighter than that to look to in his life?”
“Than you?” said Claude. “If you ask my opinion, I don’t think so. I think he’s a lucky fellow. An old mother, I don’t deny, might be a bore. An old lady, half blind, never hearing what you say, sitting by the fire—like the mothers in books, or the Mrs Nickleby kind. But you are as young and handsome and bright as any of them—keeping everything right for him, asking nothing. Upon my word, I think he is very well off. I wish I were in his place.”
Lady Markham was pleased. Affectionate flattery of this kind is always sweet to a woman. She laughed, and said he was a gay deceiver. “But, my dear boy, you will make me think a great deal more of myself than I have any right to think.”
“You ought to think more of yourself. And so you really do not think that Con——? In many ways, dear Lady Markham, I feel that Con—understood me better than any one else—except you.”