‘Have I been naughty, mamma?’ said Alice, bending over her mother. For a moment the two looked into each other’s eyes, with the perfect love, and trust, and understanding which belongs to that dearest of relationships. If it gave a pang to the heart of the woman looking on, who had no child, I cannot tell. The mother lifted her face, still warm with all the vigour, and softness, and beauty of life, and kissed the lovely, soft cheek, in its perfection of youth. ‘It would be no wonder if any one loved her,’ she said softly, when the child had disappeared into the soft darkness in the next room, her heart wrung with a premonitory pang of tender anguish. That was the night on which Laurie brought his brother Frank,—splendid young Guardsman, who had run up to town to endeavour to arrange the exchange he wanted into a regiment going to India,—to introduce him to his friends in the Square.
But on the Thursday he rushed in breathless for five minutes only in the gloaming, to keep the padrona au courant of affairs. ‘We have placed the picture, and it shows splendidly!’ he cried. ‘The only thing I fear is that Suffolk will be sulky, and not show as well as the picture. Could not you send for him before he goes, and put him in a good humour? If he were out of temper it might spoil all.’
‘I will send for them,’ said the padrona, ‘and keep his wife with me till you come back. It is very good of you to take all this trouble. I wish you had a picture to show splendidly too.’
‘How inconsistent some people are,’ said Laurie. ‘After making an end of my poor picture! No, padrona, that is all over. Let us now be of some use to our friends.’
‘But it is not all over,’ said Mrs. Severn. And then she paused, seeing, perhaps, some signs of impatience in him. ‘Heaps of people can paint pictures,’ she said; ‘but it is not everybody who can serve their friends,—like this.’
‘If it but succeed it will be something gained,’ said Laurie, with a sigh of anxiety; ‘and you will think me, after all, not useless in the world?’ he went on, holding out his hand. Miss Hadley was looking on, with very sharp eyes; and she saw that the young man stood holding the padrona’s hand much longer than was necessary for the formality of leave-taking. ‘Slasher is to dine with me at the club,’ he continued. ‘He will be in good humour at least. And you will think of us, and wish us good speed.’
‘Surely,’ the padrona said, withdrawing her hand; and Miss Hadley sat glancing out of the darkness with her keen eyes; knitting for ever, and looking on. When the young man was gone a certain embarrassment stole over Mrs. Severn,—she could not tell why. ‘He is as eager and excited as if his own fate were to be decided to-night,’ she said. ‘What a good fellow he is!’ Miss Hadley made no reply. No sound but that of the knitting-needles clicking against each other with a certain fierceness came out of the twilight in the corner. In this silence there was a certain disapproval, which made the padrona uncomfortable in spite of herself. ‘I am afraid you have changed your opinion of poor Laurie,’ she said, after a pause. ‘I thought you used to like him?’ The children had not yet come down from their game of romps in the nursery up-stairs, and the two were alone.
‘I like him very well,’ said Miss Hadley. ‘I like him so well that I can’t bear to see him making a fool of himself.’
‘How is he making a fool of himself?’ said Mrs. Severn, quickly.
‘Or to see other people making a fool of him,’ said Miss Hadley. ‘There, I have said my say! I don’t know if it be his fault or yours; but the young fellow is losing his head, my dear, and you must see it as well as I do.’