“Tell you what?”
“Why you are going to town: there must be some reason. I am sure it is not caprice. Edgar, don’t you know, I care for everything that concerns you; but you speak as if your affairs were of no consequence, as if they were nothing to me.”
“I am not so ungrateful nor so silly,” said Edgar: “but look here. I can’t tell you why I’m going, Clare; and yet I am going for a good reason, which is quite satisfactory to myself. Can you allow me as much private judgment as that?”
“Of course, your private judgment is all in all,” said Clare, affronted. “How could any one attempt to dictate to you? But one might wish to know without thrusting in one’s opinion—— Tell me only this one thing, Edgar. Is it about Gussy Thornleigh?”
Edgar laughed in the fulness of his innocence. “No more about Gussy Thornleigh than about——”
“Me?” said Clare. “You are quite sure? If it is business, that is quite a different thing. I hope I am not so foolish as to think of interfering with business. But I do feel so concerned—so anxious, Edgar dear, about——”
“About what?” said Edgar, meeting her troubled look with his habitual smile.
“About your wife,” said Clare, solemnly. She only shook her head when he laughed, disturbing all the quiet echoes. “Ah, yes, you may laugh,” she said, “but it is of the greatest importance. I assure you our—cousin thinks so too.”
Edgar made a profane exclamation. “I am infinitely obliged to him, I am sure,” he said, after the objectionable words had escaped his lips. “Our cousin thinks so too!” What was “our cousin” between these two, who ought to be everything to each other? And then it occurred to him, with a softening sense of that comic element which runs through human nature, that while Arthur Arden so kindly interested himself in his (Edgar’s) hypothetical interests, he, on his side, was taking a good deal of trouble wholly and solely on Arthur’s account. His kinsman was not aware how much he was influenced by this consideration; and the thought of this mutual regard amused Edgar, even in the midst of his displeasure. “We all take an interest in each other,” he said, laughing, half jestingly, yet with a sense of fun which was very odd to Clare.
And then she went, all unconscious, to her little table, and sat down, and took her work. She did not work very much, her hands being full of things more important—the affairs of the parish and estate; but to her, as to most other women, it was a welcome occasional refuge. It was true, quite true, that she was anxious about Edgar’s wife, and ready to believe in the attractions of Gussy Thornleigh, or any one else who came in his way; but other feelings confused her mind at the same time. When Edgar went away of course Arthur must go also; and Arthur had managed to twine himself up with her life in the strangest subtle way. How should she bear the blank when they were gone? It would be like the time before Edgar’s return—the silent days when she was alone in Arden. But these days had not been quickened by any new touch of life as the present time had been; and it made her shudder to think how such grey days would look when they came back.