Mr. Flinders had, perhaps, some right to consider himself in after years an ill-used man. He had been given notice with implacable and relentless abruptness; no explanation had been given or listened to. If Lestrange had not been so extremely quiet, Mr. Flinders would have thought he was dealing with a man who was in a dangerous rage; as it was, he merely clung to the idea (which was not originally perhaps his own) that Lestrange was a well-meaning fool, governed by a tyrannical and scheming adventuress.
Miss Lestrange, who was most sympathetic about it next morning, assured him of the fact.
“It is natural,” she said graciously, “for people like yourself, Mr. Flinders, with your high ideals and great independence of spirit, to be surprised at such strong and regrettable influence wielded over a man like my brother, but the Lestranges are well known to be, as a family, very susceptible to women. I regret your going extremely. I spoke to my brother for you, but I am sorry to say I found him quite intractable on that and many other subjects. You must write and let me know how you are getting on. Life is so difficult, isn’t it?”
Miss Lestrange was fond of speaking of Life or Destiny as being gigantic monsters with invincible powers, and yet there were times when she manipulated these great forces very easily. Mr. Flinders left her more struck than ever by her genuine qualities.
“I daresay she will miss me too,” he said to himself with pleasant regretfulness. “I may have been of some use to her,” and there was no doubt that in this particular deduction Mr. Flinders was right.
IV
Lady Walton was a woman who never did anything with her hands. She was content to sit for hours at a time thinking--“doing nothing,” her acquaintances called it. Certain hours in the day she read, but she never opened a modern book of any kind.
“I have a feeling,” she said to her niece, “that they would revive a very painful experience I once received of a kitchen-maid in hysterics. People used to accept life and make their appeal to the intellect; now they spend their time screaming at natural laws and living for the emotions. It is a mysterious modern compulsion which used to be called selfishness. When I hear you begin to talk of your temperament, my dear Edith, I shall cease to ask you to run my errands.”
Edith stroked her aunt’s hand and smiled at her; but she was preoccupied; she was expecting Horace.
“Sometimes, Edith, you disappoint me. I have an impression that all the wisdom of all the ages, including my own, would have less effect upon your intelligence than the sound (I suppose they have no creak) of an ordinary pair of Bond Street boots.”