“Oh, I hardly like to give an opinion of a man I know so little.”
The judge laughed sombrely:
“A good answer! You’re by no means as young and simple as you look, Lane. Well, the reason I asked is this: I’m making you personally responsible for Ivy and, if young Gaymer comes round after her, I shall be obliged if you’ll send him about his business. Half the nonsense in Ivy’s head comes from him. They struck up a very warm intimacy—quite unknown to her mother and me, of course! that’s the modern method; I only heard of it from people who were seeing them about together. So I got my gentleman to honour me with his company at dinner; and I put it to him—what was it all about? He pretended he didn’t understand, but I wouldn’t have any of that. ‘I’ll thank you,’ I told him, ‘not to behave in such a way as to cause people to gossip about my daughter. I daresay you think I’m old-fashioned,’ I said. ‘You may think I’m wrong,’ I said. ‘You may tell me that you’re only doing what thousands of other men do; all I say is, I was brought up in a different school.’ And I may tell you, Lane, that it was a school in which young men had manners flogged into them. My gentleman stared at me very saucily and said: ‘Are you asking me my “intentions”? Nineteen-nineteen! Is that still done? I’ve been away at the war so long that I’ve lost touch with that sort of thing.’ Well, then I rang for his coat and hat. I’ve not seen him since; but that was quite enough to make Ivy take his side, and I’ve never had any doubt that he put into her head the idea of going off and living her own life. ‘Living her own life’! How tired I am of that phrase!...”
“I don’t encourage people to interrupt me when I’m working, judge,” Eric reassured him.
The double doors of the drawing-room were open, and, as his head came on a level with the landing, Eric saw Ivy sitting on a cushion at her mother’s feet and talking with listless unconcern. She had put on her hat, and her gloves were lying across her knees. Perhaps she was only tired after her long day in the open air, perhaps she was goaded beyond bearing by her father’s pin-pricks; or perhaps she had been pleading fatigue so that he might take her away and be alone with her... As they came into the room, her unconcern dropped from her, and she turned with the same sheen of adoration in her eyes. He prayed that the judge might have missed it; he ought not to have been expecting it, for they had been talking gravely and responsibly as fathers of families, and Eric had been commissioned to protect Ivy from undesirable acquaintances... Lady Maitland had turned at the same moment, so she could not have seen the glance; but, unless she were blind, she must notice that Ivy was still transfigured....
“I was just coming down to say good-bye! Mr. Lane, what time do I come to you to-morrow? If it’s early, I must go to bed now.”
“I suppose nine o’clock’s out of the question?,” Eric hazarded.
“I can manage that.”
“Then won’t you let me see you home? I was telling your father that I’d work to finish. Lady Maitland, will you think me very rude if I run away? It’s so kind of you to let me come.”
“We were honoured to have you, I’m sure,” Lady Maitland answered. “And now that you have found your way here—”