But when she thought of Enid all her pride smarted, and anger changed to dolorous regret. It was indescribably mortifying to think that Enid, the carefully brought up young lady, the highly finished pupil of sedate private governesses and a majestically fashionable school, should forget the ordinary rules of delicacy, modesty, propriety, and exhibit less reticence in her actions than might be expected from one of Bence's drapery girls. Enid had been pointed at, laughed at, talked about. It was horrible to Mrs. Thompson. It struck directly at her own sense of dignity and importance. In cheapening herself, Enid had lowered the value of everybody connected with her. Enid, slinking out of the house, furtively hurrying to her lover, clandestinely meeting him, and lingering at his side in unseemly obliviousness of the passing hours, had been not only jeopardising her own good fame, but robbing her mother of public esteem.
Yet far worse than the wound to her pride was the bitter blow to her affection. Half her life had been spent in proving that her greatest wish, her single aim was her child's happiness; but all the years counted for nothing. Trust and confidence extinguished; no natural impulse to pour out the heart's secrets to a mother's ear—"Charlie didn't wish me to tell you." Enid said this as if it formed a completely adequate explanation: she must of course implicitly obey the strange voice. The mother who worshipped her had sunk immediately to less than nothing. A man in a red coat, a man in gaiters, the first man who whistled to her—and Enid had gone freely and willingly to exchange the dull old love for the bright new one. There lay the stinging pain of it.
What to do? One must do something. Mrs. Thompson took up the business side of it, and determined as a first step to tackle the young man. Purchased horsewhips impossible; but carefully chosen words may produce some effect.
She told Enid—after several conversations on the disastrous subject—that she desired an interview with Mr. Charles Kenion. Enid might write, inviting him to call upon her mother, or Mrs. Thompson would herself write.
Enid said she would write to him without delay; but she begged that he might be received at the house, and not be asked to enter the shop. She seemed to dread the idea of bringing so fine a gentleman into close touch with the common aspects of mercantile existence.
"No," said Mrs. Thompson firmly. "Let him come to me in my shop. It is purely a business interview, and I prefer to hold it in a place of business."
It was a most unsatisfactory interview.
Mrs. Thompson hated the young man at the very first glimpse of him as he came lounging into her room. He was tall and skinny; his dark, straight hair was plastered back from a low forehead; he had no moustache; and his teeth, which showed too much in a narrow mouth, were ugly, set at a slightly projecting angle, as with parrots. No reasonable being could call him handsome; but of course his general air and manner were gentlemanlike—Mrs. Thompson admitted so much at once, and disliked him all the more for it. Gentlemanlikeness was his sole stock in trade: he would push that for all it was worth, and she was immediately conscious that in his easy tone and careless lounging attitude there was a quiet, steady assumption of his social value as the well-bred young gentleman whose father is related to the peerage.
"Please be seated, Mr. Kenion."
"Thanks."