He looked at her without answering. It was certainly unfortunate that his wife’s mother should drink more than was seemly, and her brother have but primitive ideas about property.
“It’s not my fault,” she cried, with bitter pain, interrupting his silence. “Don’t think too hardly of me.”
“No, it’s not your fault,” he answered, with involuntary coldness. “You must go away to Brighton all the same, but I’m afraid it means no holiday in the summer.”
He wrote a cheque, and then a letter to his bank begging them to advance a hundred pounds on securities they held.
“There he is,” cried Jenny, hearing a ring. “I told him to come back in half an hour.”
Basil got up.
“You’d better give the cheque to your brother at once. Say that I don’t wish to see him.”
“Isn’t he to come here any more, Basil?”
“That is as you like, Jenny. If you wish, we’ll pretend he was unfortunate rather than—dishonest; but I’d rather he didn’t refer to the matter. I want neither his thanks nor his excuses.”
Without answering Jenny took the cheque. She would have given a great deal to fling her arms gratefully round Basil’s neck, begging him to forgive, but there was a hardness in his manner which frightened her. All the evening he sat in moody silence, and Jenny dared not speak. His kiss when he bade her good-night had never been so frigid, and unable to sleep, she cried bitterly. She could not understand the profound abhorrence with which he looked upon the incident. To her mind it was little more than a mischance occasioned by Jimmie’s excessive sharpness, and she was disposed to agree with her brother that only luck had been against him. She somewhat resented Basil’s refusal to hear any defence, and his complete certainty that the very worst must be true.