But she was very anxious all the morning. She was anxious, expecting Gervase every moment to rush in, to bring her the report of some further interview not more satisfactory with his father. When Gervase did not come she became only more anxious, thinking of him as perhaps summoned to some solemn conference with the two fathers, and impatient under their admonitions. He would almost certainly be impatient. They would sneer at him in a way which it would be impossible for his quick temper to bear. They would goad him with little taunts, such as they were both so capable of employing, and which they would declare meant nothing except in the boy’s fancy, after they had nearly made him crazy with them. Oh why are fathers and parents generally so hard, so mocking and taunting, and children so susceptible? She thought that she herself (in reality the most tenderly guarded of daughters) was almost invulnerable to that sort of thing, knowing how to take it—but Gervase! So that Madeline grew more and more anxious as the hours went on, not knowing what to think.
It was not till about four o’clock in the afternoon that Gervase came. She had pictured him in so many aspects of excitement—angry, harassed, exasperated, impatient, despairing—that it was almost a disappointment to her to see him walk in very much like himself—a little more grave than usual perhaps, but perfectly self-possessed and calm. He even paused to speak to the elderly visitor with whom she was hurriedly shaking hands, anxious only to get her away. Gervase said to Mrs Brown that he was glad to see her, and asked for her sons and her daughters, companions of his childhood, while Madeline stood tingling, not knowing how to bear the suspense. He walked down to the door with that old woman! leaving her almost beside herself with desire to know what had happened. He came up-stairs again in quite a leisurely way, not taking three steps at a time as she had seen him do. “Well?” she said, meeting him at the head of the stairs.
It was true he put his arm round her to lead her back to the room, but he did not satisfy her anxiety. “Well?” he said. “No, I don’t think it is well, nor ill either, perhaps; it is nothing—it is a compromise.”
“But, Gervase, in the state things had got to, that is well,” she cried, drawing a long breath, “the best we could hope for. Was it papa!”
“I can’t tell you, Madeline. He is in it somehow, but in what way I don’t exactly know. I think my father had determined upon it before he appeared.”
He had led her to her seat, and placed her in it, and seated himself beside her; but he did not seem to have any desire to say more.
“You forget you have not told me what it is, Gervase.”
“No; I feel as if it were mere aggravation, without any meaning in it. I am to be sent away again.”
“To be sent away!”
She, too, felt as if it did not much matter what the new arrangement was.