"You think then, Horace, that nothing can be so bad as trouble to the firm. You think that loss of money——?"
"Loss of money is not everything," he said, testily. "I hope Lycett-Landon's could lose a lot of money without being much the worse. The fact is, you don't understand. It is always the personal you dwell upon. I am not reproaching you, mamma; it is your nature." He patted her hand as he said this, and looked at her with a half-smile of boyish wisdom and superiority, very kindly compassionating her limited powers.
This silenced her once more: and so they remained for some time, he sitting thoughtfully by her, she reclining on the bed looking at him, trying to read the meaning in his face. At last she said tremulously, "I am not quite so bad as you think: but perhaps a matter that touched our family peace, that sundered us from each other—disunited us——"
He kept on patting her hand, but more impatiently than before. "Nothing could do that—permanently," he said. And he asked no more questions. He was a little, a very little, contemptuous of his mother. "I ought to have gone along with old Fareham. We should have talked it over together. I suppose now I must have patience till he comes back. When do you think he will come back? Can't I go and join him there? Oh, you think papa wouldn't like it? Well, perhaps he might not. It is rather hard upon me, all the same, to wait on and know nothing."
"Don't you think if you were to take a walk, Horace, or go and see the pictures——?"
"Oh, the pictures! in this state of anxiety? Well, yes, I think I will take a walk; it is better than staying indoors. And don't you make yourself unhappy, mother. It can't have been going on very long, and no doubt we shall pull through."
Saying this with a cloudy smile, Horace went away, waving his hand to her as he went out. She then got up and dressed with a stupefied sensation, taking all the usual pains about her toilet, though with a sense that it was absolutely unimportant. She could not remember what day it was, or what month, or even what year. She was conscious of having received a remorseless and crushing blow, but that was all; when she had left home or whether she would ever go back to it, she could not tell; neither could she form the least idea of what was going to happen when old Mr Fareham came back. She forgot that she had not breakfasted, and even, what was more wonderful, that to save appearances it was necessary to make believe to breakfast. Everything of the kind was swept away. She went into the sitting-room and sat down at the window like an abstract woman in a picture. It was very strange to her to do nothing; and yet she never thought of doing anything, but sat down and waited—waited for something that was about to happen, not knowing what it might be.
She had not waited long when one of the hotel servants knocked at the door, and, opening it, admitted a stranger whom she had never seen before—a small, thin woman in a widow's dress, who stood hesitating, looking at her with a pair of anxious eyes, and for the first moment said nothing. Mrs Lycett-Landon was roused by the unlooked-for appearance of this visitor. She rose up, wondering, at such a moment, who it was that could have come to disturb her. The stranger was very timid and shy. She hung about the door as if there were a protection in being near it.
"I beg your pardon," she said, "I don't even know by what name to speak to you. But one of my daughter's maids saw you yesterday get into a cab, and then we heard you had come here."
"I think I understand; your daughter is——?"