“Vex! I hope I have not so little self-command. The place has become indifferent indeed to me. It was dear by association, but now that’s all ended. One ends where another begins. I can only hope, Edward, that your branch of the family will be more fortunate—more—than ours have been.”
“Thank you, Alicia. I hope that you may be very happy, Russell and you. He’s as good a fellow as lives; and I’m sure, a delightful companion to be alone with.”
“Are you recommending my husband to me?” she said, with one of those smiles which made her cousin, whose utterances certainly were very inappropriate, shrink into himself. “Don’t you think I ought to know better than any one what a delightful companion he is? And I hear you are to have a marriage in your family. Harry Rochford will, I hope, prove a delightful companion too.”
“He is a good fellow,” said poor Sir Edward, able to think of no more original phrase. “He is not quite in the position a Penton might have looked for—”
“Oh,” she cried, hastily, “what does that matter?—there are Pentons and Pentons. And your daughter, Edward—your daughter—”
“I am sorry you don’t think well of my daughter, Alicia.”
“I never said so. She is very pretty and what people call sweet. I know no more of her; how could I? I was going to say she looked unambitious. And against Harry Rochford there is not a word to be said. Don’t you think your wife would like to see over the house?”
This is how they parted, without any warm rapprochement, though Alicia, with her usual consciousness of her own faults and her husband’s opinion, involuntarily condemned every word she herself said, and everything she did, while she almost forced Lady Penton from one room to another, each of which filled that poor lady with deeper and deeper dismay. But, notwithstanding this secret current of self-disapproval, and notwithstanding the certainty she had of what her husband felt on the subject, there was a certain stern pleasure in bidding her supplanters good-bye on the threshold of the house that was still her own; dismissing them, so to speak, for the last time from Penton with a keen sense of the despondency and discouragement with which they went away. She took notice of everything as she did them that unusual honor, which was an aggravation under the circumstances, of accompanying them to the door; of the pair of screws—of the absence of any footman—and, still more, of the depressed looks of the simple pair. All these things gave her a thrill of satisfaction. Who were they, to be the possessors of Penton? They did not even appreciate it—did not admire it—thought of the expense! But she went upstairs again with her husband following her, feeling more like a culprit, a school-boy who is expecting a lecture, than it was consistent with Alicia’s dignity to feel. Russell did not say anything, but he showed inclinations to whistle, as it were, under his breath.
“I am very glad this is over,” she said.
“So am I,” he replied.