Mab looked at her with those keen little eyes, which twinkled and sparkled with curiosity, and which to the little girl’s own apprehension were able to look through and through all those simple people. But even Mab was daunted by this gentle and undoubting superiority of experience.
Lady Penton resumed quietly, speaking more to herself than to her companion, “I hope she will not feel it now—not too much to listen. I hope she may not prove more proud than ever.”
She shook her head as she went slowly along, and Mab could not divine what she was thinking. They went together to the bench under the poplar-tree, where the weathercock which was over the Penton stables caught the red gold of the westering sun, and blazed so that it looked like a sun itself, stretching brazen rays over the dark and leafless woods.
“Do you think she could be happy living anywhere else?” Lady Penton said at last.
“She—who? Do you mean Aunt Gerald? Oh, yes, to be sure, when she knows it isn’t hers. And my uncle hates it.”
“Your uncle!” Lady Penton repeated. And then she said, after a time, “I don’t think she could be happy in any other house.”
But what was meant by this, or whether the new mistress of Penton was glad that her predecessor should suffer, or if these words were said in sympathy, was what little Mab could not understand. She had to betake herself to an investigation of the sentiments of the others. It began a new chapter in her investigations when at last Sir Edward and his son appeared in their sables, both very grave and preoccupied. The father went into the house with his wife; the son joined the youthful group about the door. But no one could be more unwilling to communicate than Walter proved himself. He stood like a hound held in and pulling at the leash—like a horse straining against the curb. (“If you were to give him his head how he would go!” Mab said to herself.) But he did not break loose as she expected him to do. Impatient as he was, he stood still, with now and then a glance at the western sky. The sunset was a long time accomplishing itself. Was that what he was so impatient for?
“I suppose there was a wonderful crowd of people, Wat?”
“Yes, there were a great many people.”
“Everybody—that was anybody—”