It did not matter anything to Norah. She did not care; why should she? Her very admiration of him had been linked with a gibe. He was too handsome; he was a man out of a book. Nevertheless, she looked at Miss Jane for a moment aghast. 'The boy that was on our side!' she said to herself.
'Who are they, and what do they know about it?' said Stephen. 'People don't make such arrangements now-a-days. If this were intended, you may be sure nothing at all would be said.'
Stephen made this little speech partly out of a real regard for Norah's cheerfulness, which he thought was affected, and partly to rouse her to self-defence.
'But it would be quite nice,' said Norah, recovering her dismay. 'Oh, how funny it would be to think of one of us being married! It should be Clara the first; she is the youngest, but she is the biggest, and she was always the one who would be first, you know. She is very, very handsome, Miss Jane. You never were fond of Clara; that is why you don't see it. It would be the very thing!' cried Norah, clapping her hands. 'She is not one of the girls that would go and make him vain, falling in love with him. She will keep him in his right place; she will not let him be the hero in the novel. The only thing is, I am a little disappointed—though it is very foolish and stupid; for of course all that is over long ago, and Clara is like my sister; and if Mr Burton was wicked, I hope he has repented. But still, you know, I have always thought of Mr Rivers as one that was on our side.'
'Hush, child!' cried Miss Jane. 'Don't be the one to keep up old quarrels. That is all over now, and we have no sides.'
'So I suppose,' said Norah; 'but I feel a little as if he were a deserter. I wonder if Clara likes him. I wonder if——It is all so very funny! One of us girls! But I must go now to mamma. Mr Stephen, I will come back in the evening, and tell you what mamma thinks, and if Mr Rivers had anything to tell her—that is, if he comes to-day.'
And Norah ran away unceremoniously, without leave-taking. She was the child of both the households. Sometimes she went and came a dozen times in a day, carrying always a little stream of youth, and life, and freshness into the stagnant places. Stephen laid down his book with a smile at the sight of her; he took it up now with a little sigh. He had sat there all these six years, a motionless, solemn figure, swept aside from the life of man, and Norah's comings and goings had been as sweet to him as if she had been his own child. Now he feared that a new chapter of life was opening, and it moved him vaguely, with an expectation which was mingled with pain; for any change must bring pain to him. To others there would be alternations—threads twisted of dark and bright, of good and evil; but to him in his chair by the window, no change, he felt, could bring anything but harm.
'Oh, mamma,' said Norah, rushing into the drawing-room at the other side of the house, 'fancy what I have just heard! They say it is all but settled that Clara is to marry Mr Rivers. They say that is why he is here.'
'It is very likely, dear,' said Helen. 'I thought something of that kind must be intended from what I saw last night.'
'What did you see, mamma? How odd I should never have thought of it! I feel a little disappointed,' said Norah; 'because, you know, I always made up my mind that he was on our side.'