“Perhaps it was because he got very tired of me, and thought there was no other way of getting rid of me; perhaps because he was tired of it himself. He came at last like a lamb. I did not really believe it till we were on the boat, and Algy Muncastle turned up, and I introduced him to my father. You should have seen how he stared.”
“Oh!” said Lady Markham again; and then she added faintly: “Is—is he here?”
“You mean papa? I left him at aunt Caroline’s. In the circumstances, that seemed the best thing to do.”
Lady Markham leaned back in her chair; she had become very pale. One shock after another had reduced her strength. She closed her eyes while Constance very comfortably sipped her tea. It was not possible that she could have dreamed it or imagined it, when, on opening her eyes again, she saw Constance sitting by the tea-table with a plate of bread and butter before her. “I have really,” she explained seriously, “eaten nothing to-day.”
Frances came down some time after, having bathed her eyes and smoothed her hair. It was always smooth like satin, shining in the light. She came in, in her unobtrusive way, ashamed of herself for her outburst of temper, and determined to be “good,” whatever might happen. She was surprised that there was no conversation going on. Constance sat in a chair which Frances at once recognised as having been hers from the beginning of time, wondering at her own audacity in having sat in it, when she did not know. Lady Markham was still leaning back in her chair. “Oh, it’s nothing—only a little giddiness. So many strange things are happening. Did you give your uncle Clarendon my note? I suppose Frances told you, Con, how we have been upset to-day?”
“Upset?” said Constance over her bread and butter. “I should have thought you would have been immensely pleased. It is about Sir Thomas, I suppose?”
“About Sir Thomas! Is there any news about Sir Thomas?” said Lady Markham, with an elaborately innocent look. “If so, it has not yet been confided to me.” And then she proceeded to tell to her daughter the story of Nelly Winterbourn.
“I should have thought that would all have been set right in the settlements,” Constance said.
“So it ought. But she had no one to see to the settlements—no one with a real interest in her; and it was such a magnificent match.”
“No better than Sir Thomas, mamma.”