These words were delivered with a little suddenness and a tone as of defiance, but Mrs. Egerton did not take up the glove.
‘Percy would like to keep us all to our duties,’ she said, with an ease which made the success of that effort very doubtful, ‘but we don’t at present see our way to absolute obedience. Since you are not going to the schools, sit down, Elly, and keep still. No doubt you distract John’s attention, fluttering about like that. I am sure you do mine.’
John did not say anything. It distracted him still more when she came at her aunt’s order and sat down within sight, and let him see how carefully she was listening, and what interest she took in his narrative—which henceforward became a very broken affair, chiefly elicited by questions to which he replied. He had all the desire in the world to interest and satisfy Elly, but his own interest in all her looks and movements was so great, and his anxiety not to lose a word she said, that the desire was baulked even by its very warmth. Perhaps Mrs. Egerton perceived the ground of the disturbance in the young man’s mind, for she came suddenly to the present, after he began to waver in his narrative of the past.
‘And so,’ she said, ‘you have come to settle about the old house, John? Have you been there yet?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘not yet. I did not care to go at once. Being with Mr. Cattley was like old times, without the pain of contrast.’
‘Ah! and that’s a pleasure you will not have very long. I am glad you keep to the “Mr. Cattley,” John. I expect to hear Percy call me Mary tout court one of these days. I am glad some of you boys have a little sense of what is befitting. Mr. Cattley is going, you know.’
‘I am sorry, Mrs. Egerton: and yet I suppose——’
‘One ought to be glad? That is just my feeling. One ought to be glad. He never would have—married or done anything else that is necessary at his age, or asserted himself and his independence, here. But come, tell me: you are going to settle about the old house. Do you mean to sell it, or to let it, or what do you mean to do?’
‘I want to do a silly thing,’ said John.
‘Well! out with it. What is your silly thing? You young men are all so admirably sensible and awake to your own interests. I am rather glad to hear of anything that can be called so.’