‘What’s brought you here? What have you come to tell me? Now don’t keep me waiting?’
‘Lor’, my dear, one would need the breath of a healthy giant to keep pace with your impatience. Give me leave to rest a minute.’
‘All’s well at home, I hope?’
‘Why, yes, of course, as well as it can be with a mother and father whose only child is leaving them, perhaps for ever, in a couple of days.’ Her eyes moistened. ‘But it is his wish, and it is his father’s wish, and that must make it right—yes, that must make it right; though I’d have been grateful, very grateful, if it hadn’t been the sea.’ She wept for a few minutes, and I held my peace. Then drying her eyes with a resolved motion of the handkerchief, she said: ‘You’ve been enjoying some lively days of late, Marian?’
‘Happy days. Poor Will!’ and now I felt as if I must cry, too.
‘You’re a strange creature, my dear. Whatever you do seems to me wrong. And yet, somehow, I can never satisfy my mind that your conduct’s improper. I believe you’d be the same were your mother living. Your father might have held you in, but you’d have had your way with your poor mother.’
‘What have I done?’ said I, bridling up and flushing in the face.
‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ she answered mildly. ‘Of course, your going about so much with Captain Butler, often being alone with him, as Will has told us, is quite contrary to my ideas of good conduct. Do you want the man for a husband, Marian?’
I guessed by my temper that I looked hotly at her.
‘Do you, child, do you? You should answer me. If you do not answer me I will go, and I am sure that you will wish this house should be burnt down rather than that I should go.’