SUSAN THORLEY had no chance of fulfilling the behest of her lady. Her offered services were declined with thanks, and speech she had none with Sir Philip's bride. He liked Thorley, but guessed his mother's principal object in sending her, so answered—
"I will look after my wife for to-night. She has not been accustomed to the attendance of a maid, so will miss nothing. All she needs is rest and sleep, and these she is more likely to get by not seeing any more fresh faces."
"The sight of one new face has been enough for her, poor dear young creature," thought the maid, but she did not say it. She only replied, "I hope you will call me, sir, if I can be of any use."
"I would rather call you than any one, if help were needed," said Sir Philip; and Thorley, not a little gratified, dropped a respectful curtsey and withdrew.
"Humph! So that is all you have to tell me?" said Lady Longridge, when her maid reappeared. "Well, that is something. Not used to the attendance of a maid! Just as I thought. Philip has married a nobody for the sake of a pretty face. And to be so foolish at thirty-nine. Older and madder—older and madder. You can go, Thorley."
Later still, when his young wife was sleeping calmly, Sir Philip joined his mother in a little sitting-room, which she preferred to any of the larger apartments used on state occasions. The two were silent for some minutes; then Sir Philip raised his head, and said—
"I hope you will forgive my apparent want of respect, mother. It was not intentional, but this whole affair has been so sudden—brought about, indeed, by such unforeseen circumstances—that I could hardly help myself."
"If you had been a hot-headed lad of twenty, I could have understood your conduct. At your age it is incomprehensible—inexcusable, I was going to say. Put yourself in my place, if you can, and imagine what I felt on hearing you say, 'This is my wife.' I, your mother, to whom you had not deigned to send a word of warning."
"You had been so used to my coming home just when the humour seized me—to my comet-like fashion of appearing and disappearing—that I did not expect you would be so annoyed at my arriving unannounced."
"Nor am I. It is to your wife's arrival—if this girl be indeed your wife."