“Yes, now and then. He has just been telling me of a new man whom his keeper has heard of to get pheasants’ eggs from.”
Mrs. Tancred looked at her husband with penetrating surprise. She had never known Edward intolerant before; yet there was not much warmth of compassion in his tone. To one of Edward’s nature, noise and grief were impossible companions, and his brother-in-law’s uncontrolled demonstration at the graveside had, as Camilla was aware, been almost intolerable to her husband.
“Sorrow affects people in different ways,” she said, with a rebuke which was gently meant, though it sounded, as her mildest utterances always did, severe and didactic.
“Yes, I know; but he made such an exhibition of himself.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“You will be glad to get back to Stillington?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“We must take Bonnybell with us.”
At that he gave—not a stage start, but one of those almost invisible movements for which stage starts are meant to stand.