As the car drove away, he stood irresolutely in the hall, swinging his keys. A widower remarrying.... He was beginning to treat Ivy very much as he had treated Barbara, thinking of her and for her in the same way, using the words which had once been sacred to Barbara. And Ivy was fitting herself into his life as Barbara had once done... Promiscuity was not the differentia of woman....
Two days later his mother wrote colourlessly to say that she would be delighted to see Miss Maitland for the week-end. If she speculated on the person and destiny of a girl whose name her son had not mentioned until that moment, she kept her own counsel. When they travelled down to Winchester on the Saturday afternoon, a Remington was included in their luggage, and Eric reminded Ivy that they must keep up the pretense that she had come to help him with his work. Though they had rehearsed their parts, both were a little self-conscious; and to their oversensitive appreciation every one at first seemed elaborately anxious not to betray surprise. Sybil met them at the station and greeted Ivy with unreserved friendliness; Lady Lane welcomed her in the hall, and, when Eric went upstairs to dress, Basil came into his room with ingenuous congratulations.
“Very nice line in secretaries, old thing,” he observed, throwing himself on Eric’s bed. “And it’s like you to keep her to yourself, you old dog, when I’ve been mouldering for two years in Salonica and simply yearning for refined female society.”
“I took the earliest possible opportunity,” Eric answered. “She’s only been with me a fortnight, while my permanent secretary’s taking a holiday; and she’s only going to be with me another fortnight.”
“Well, send her along to my jolly old office, when she’s through with you,” Basil suggested swiftly. “You’ve simply no conception of the sort of thing that’s blown in during the war. Every sign of staying, too.”
“I don’t think she’s on the look-out for that kind of job. I know her people, and, when she heard I was alone and secretaryless, she very kindly volunteered to come and lend me a hand till the other girl came back.”
Basil wagged his head dubiously.
“I call it very trusting of her parents,” he said. “Fresh sweet English girl, young bachelor of doubtful morality, notoriously associated with the stage... I don’t like it at all. I think I must warn her about you.”
“I doubt if you’ll cut much ice... Is any one dining, or are we treating her to unrelieved family?”
“The Warings are coming over to ease the monotony. And, by the same token, I’d better go and dress!”