“You had better ask Carl, mamma; he is the one to explain,” answered Melicent. “But I must say that Mr. Rowan has behaved ill. A young man whom one of our family has promised to marry should at least act like a gentleman.”
“Send Carl to me,” Mrs. Yorke said, rising. “And, Clara, say to Betsey that I shall see no one to-day, then go up and tell Edith.”
Carl was pacing one of the garden paths, and, for the first time that day, his manner showed agitation. He had already heard Patrick’s news, and his first thought was to echo Melicent’s opinion that one who had
been connected with their family should at least act like a gentleman. This sudden withdrawal not only gave occasion for gossip, but it was rude to Edith. That it left him in the position of a culprit, Carl would not allow himself to care.
“I thought the fellow had more spirit!” he muttered. “But it isn’t in him to act like anything but a rustic.”
As he said this, an inner voice made answer; not the voice of conscience, for that acquitted him, but the voice which he expected to hear from without: “Neither is it in him to speak or sing love to another man’s promised wife, though silence should break his heart.”
“And what if it broke hers?” asked Carl, as though he had been spoken to.
He glanced up at the window of Edith’s chamber. The curtain was down, hanging in close, white folds, shutting her in.
Then came Melicent to call him.
Carl found his mother in a tiny room, where she always took her siesta in summer, and where she held all her private conferences. It was a cosy, shady nook, with only a sofa, and table, and chair in it, and seemed intended as a place for confidential communion. In that room, with nothing to save him from her steady eyes, Mr. Griffeth had stammered out his apologies to Mrs. Yorke for misleading her son; there, her daughters came for advice and admonition; and there she herself retired when she wished to be alone. It was a place where a rebel could be brought to submission, or a penitent comforted. It is almost impossible to be confidential in a large, well-lighted room.