The mother shook her head.
"Best go and call the men-folk," she said, in her direct fashion. "Murray can see to his likes and dislikes the same as he can see to most things he's set on." Then she smiled. "Anyway, I don't suppose it figgers any with you around. John Kars isn't likely to suffer from it."
Just for one instant the girl's eyes answered the mother's gentle challenge. Then she went off firing her parting shot over her shoulder as she vanished through the doorway.
"I've always thought Murray mean—for—for all his fat smile. I—just hate meanness."
Ailsa Mowbray was startled. Nothing could have startled her more. In all the years of their association with Murray she had never before heard so direct an expression of dislike from either of her children. It troubled her. She had not been blind to Alec's feelings. Ever since the boy had grown to manhood she had known there had been antagonism between them. She was never likely to forget the scene on the night her husband's appeal for help reached her. But Jessie.
She was disquieted. She was wondering, too. And, wondering, the memory of her promise to Murray rose up threateningly before her. She turned slowly back to the stove for no definite purpose, and, so turning, she shook her head.
Later, Jessie returned, the last sign of her ill-humor completely gone. Behind her came the two men of her mother's household. And so the evening meal progressed to its conclusion.
Later still Father José and his two visitors foregathered in the hospitable living-room, and, for the time at least, Ailsa Mowbray gave no further thought to her disquiet, or to the appeal Murray had made to her.