'No; I suppose it was at a later period we were friends,' Mr Burton said, with a laugh. 'How strangely circumstances alter! I am afraid I made myself rather disagreeable last night. When a man is bilious, he is not accountable for his actions; and I had been worried in town; but it was too bad to go and put it out on you; what I really wanted to ask last night was if the house was quite in order for the winter? But something brought on the other subject, and I lost my temper like an idiot. I hope you won't think any more of it. And it is really important to know if the house is in order—if you are prepared to run the risk of frost, and all that. I was speaking to Tait, the carpenter, this moment. I think I shall send him just to look over the house.'
Helen made no reply; this talk about nothing, this pretence of ease and familiarity, was an insult to her. And Norah clung close to her arm, enclosing it with both hands, calling her mother's attention to every new sentence with a closer pressure. They went on for a few minutes before Mr Burton could invent anything more to say, and Ned stalked at Norah's other side with all a boy's helplessness. He certainly was not in a condition to help his father out.
'Ned has been up to town with me to-day,' said Mr Burton, still more cheerfully. 'It will be a loss, but we must make up our minds to send him to school. It is a disadvantage to him being so tall; everybody thinks he is fifteen at least. It is handy for you that Norah is so small. You can make a baby of her for three or four years yet.'
Here Norah squeezed her mother's arm so tight that Helen winced with the pain, yet took a kind of forlorn amusement too from the fury of the child's indignation.
'Norah is no baby,' she said, 'happily for me; Norah is my best companion and comfort.'
'Ah, yes; she is in your confidence; that is charming,' said Mr Burton; 'quite like a story-book; whereas Ned, the great blockhead, cares for nothing but his dogs and nonsense. But he shall be packed off to Eton directly. The house is so full at present, my wife has been regretting we have seen nothing of you, Helen. I suppose it is too early to ask you to come to us under present circumstances? But after a while, I hope, when we are alone—And Norah must come before Ned goes away. There is to be a children's party. What did your mother settle about that, Ned?'
'Don't know,' growled Ned at Norah's other side.
'Don't know! Well you ought to know, since it's in your honour. Clara will send you word, Helen. Now, I suppose, I must be off, or I shall not have time to dress. Why, by Jove, there goes the bell already!' cried Mr Burton.
He looked round, and the bays, which had been impatiently following at a foot-pace, held in with difficulty by the groom, stopped at the sign he made, while the sonorous dinner-bell, which rang twice every evening through all seasons, sounded its first summons through the darkness. There was something very awe-inspiring in the sound of that bell. That, as much as anything, impressed the village and neighbourhood with a sense of the importance of the master of Dura. The old Harcourts had used it only on very great occasions; but the Burtons used it every evening. All the cooks in Dura village guided themselves by its sound. 'Lord, bless us! there's the bell a-going at the great house, and my chickens not put down to roast yet,' Mrs Witherspoon at the Rectory would say, giving herself such 'a turn' as she did not get over all the evening. Mr Burton, too, got 'a turn' when he heard it.
He cried, 'Good night, Helen! Ned, come along,' and jumped into his phaeton.