He never became entirely reconciled to the architecture of Adriutha, but the interior magnificence disturbed him less and less; besides, he had very little real love for decoration, and knew little about its harmonies. All the art that was in him consisted in a cleverness and facility for expressing what was actually of slight importance.
So he became amiably reconciled to his surroundings, to his own position. Probably the lack of responsibility and the pleasant idleness had much to do with it.
Still, he really liked Jack Rivett and Christine. In prosperous days the chances would have been against his ever giving himself the opportunity of liking them. But chance had taken charge of his career for the moment; he had met them, and liked them—was inclined to like Rivett senior, too, and began to experience a certain tenderness toward his frail little hostess—something he had never noticed in himself since his mother's death many years ago.
For the others he had no particular feelings. He knew, without troubling himself to think about it, that Colonel Curmew was what his own friends would call a bounder; and the remaining guests were of no greater importance to him than strangers inclined to be civil.
As for Silvette and Diana, they were not only kindred, and so to be automatically cherished, but they also were very charming and delightful young girls; and Diana aroused his curiosity.
During the first days of their acquaintance, the circumstances of his encounter with Diana had inclined him to sentiment. Now that had been merged into a nice friendship—a friendship so frank and pleasant that, in his idea, it permitted privileges of an intimacy which at first perplexed and disturbed Diana, and which, presently, she began to silently resent without exactly knowing why.
What her ideas concerning Edgerton really were, she herself had not entirely decided. She had been as vividly conscious of the charm of their first encounter as had he; being a woman, she still remembered it vividly, whereas, with him, it had dissolved into the mistiest of dream-tinted memories—charming, but vague.
Too, she remembered his attitude toward her in those first three days in the studio—the golden magic of them, the little roof garden, the starlings, the sunset beyond the river. Under such circumstances, the things men say and look, men usually forget; but women remember longer.
Then she remembered, too, the first days of their arrival at Adriutha.... There was nothing in particular to recall—a note or two from her to him, from him to her.... Perhaps a something in his voice and eyes which, somehow, had died out since.... Yet, had it been anything in particular? And, granting that it had, what had she done to encourage it?
She had fallen into the habit of thinking about these things in her bedroom while preparing for the night. She often thought, too, about this new friendship of his for Christine Rivett. It perplexed her, saddened, irritated her by turns, and it distressed her to even question his motives.