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In pursuance of his overnight promise to Derek, Freddie Rooke had got in touch with Jill through the medium of the telephone immediately after breakfast, and had arranged to call at Ovington Square in the afternoon. Arrived there, he found Jill with a telegram in her hand.
If Dorothea perceived him, she gave no sign. It was clear to Derek that her spurt of rebellion was over, and that her little experience had done her no harm. The name of Wappinger being tacitly ignored between them, he could only express his pleasure, in the results he had achieved, by an extravagant increase of Dorothea's allowance, and gifts of inappropriate jewels.
Among the few who paid her the tribute of recollection there was the generally received impression that Derek Pruyn, having discovered her relations with the Marquis de Bienville relations which, so they said, had been well known in Paris, in the days when she was still some one had dismissed her from her position in his household.
It is worthy of record that, despite his mother's obvious disapproval of his engagement, despite all the occurrences of this dreadful day, it was not till she made this remark that Derek Underhill first admitted to himself that, intoxicate his senses as she might, there was a possibility that Jill Mariner was not the ideal wife for him.
And with the thought: 'He must be jolly when he gives them one! she turned once more to the darkness, than which he had said there was nothing nicer. It smelled of new-mown grass, was full of little shiverings of leaves, and all colored like the bloom of a black grape. And her heart felt soothed. "...When I first saw Derek I thought I should never feel anything but shy and hopeless.
Derek had taken the man's thick, brown hand; Felix could see with what effort the boy was biting back his feelings. "This is Mr. Pogram, Bob. A solicitor who'll do all he can for you." Felix looked at Mr. Pogram. The little man was standing with arms akimbo; his face the queerest mixture of shrewdness and compassion, and he was giving off an almost needlessly strong scent of gutta-percha.
With arms supported by the high back of the chair and cheek on her clasped hands, she gazed away into the dimness of the room, as if waiting for him to continue; but during the silence that ensued it seemed to Derek as if a shadow crossed her features, while her bright look died out in a kind of wistfulness.
"And, if you feel you've got to discuss me, kindly keep it to yourself. Don't come and tell me what your damned friends said to each other and to you and what you said to them, because it bores me. I'm not interested. I don't value their opinions as much as you seem to." Derek paused, to battle in silence with the imperious agony within him.
He had had much more to say on the subject of Derek Underhill, but Freddie's interruptions had put it out of his head, and he felt irritated and baffled. "Well, all I can say is," he remarked savagely, "that, if you have come over here as an ambassador to try and effect a reconciliation between Jill and Underhill, I hope to God you'll never find her."
In this way, pointing out the beauty of each feature of the scenery, and not permitting herself or Nedda to think about the bag, they drove until they came to Joyfields. Kirsteen alone was in, and, having sent Nedda into the orchard to look for her uncle, Frances Freeland came at once to the point. It was so important, she thought, that darling Nedda should see more of dear Derek.
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