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Euphrasia had almost forgotten that, such had been the strange harmony of their communion. "Have you the right to tell Austen?" she demanded. "Have I?" Victoria repeated. And then, as the full meaning of the question came to her; the colour flooded into her face, and she would have fled, if she could, bud Euphrasia's words came in a torrent. "You've made him unhappy, as well as Hilary.
For Sarah Austen had had a morality of her own, and on occasions had given expression to extreme views. "She's not playin' with you?" was Euphrasia's next question, and her tone boded ill to any young person who would indulge in these tactics with Austen. He shook his head again, and smiled at her vehemence. "No, she's not playing with me she isn't that kind.
"But I have no errand with her," he objected, mystified yet excited by Euphrasia's manner. "She fetched Hilary home," said Euphrasia. "Yes." She couldn't have be'n kinder if she was his own daughter." "I know " he began, but Euphrasia interrupted. "She sent that Englishman for the doctor, and waited to take the news to her father, and she came out in this kitchen and talked to me."
And she led the way onward; through the little passage, to the room where she had spent most of her days. It was flooded with level, yellow rays of light that seemed to be searching the corners in vain for dust. Victoria paused in the doorway. "I'm afraid you do me an injustice," she said. "I like some kitchens." "You don't look as if you knew much about 'em," was Euphrasia's answer.
"Not a word for me, Tom?" she said, when the last of Cousin Euphrasia's treasures had been rescued from the impatient train porter and added to the heap on the platform. "All the words are for you or they shall be presently," he laughed. "Just let me get your luggage out of pawn and started Deer-Traceward, and I'll talk you to a finish." She stood by and looked on while he did it.
During her brief married life there had been periods of defiance from her lasting a week, when she would not speak to Hilary or look at him, and these periods would be followed by violent spells of weeping in Euphrasia's arms, when the house was no place for Hilary.
Was this strange, bronzed, quietly humorous young man his son? Hilary even had to raise his eyes a little; he had forgotten how tall Austen was. Strange emotions, unbidden and unwelcome, ran riot in his breast; and Hilary Vane, who made no slips before legislative committees or supreme courts, actually found himself saying: "Euphrasia's got your room ready."
Euphrasia's glance was like a viper's, as she said, with an irony in her voice that cannot be rendered: "Virtue! we leave that to deformity and to ugly women. What would the poor things be without it?" "Hush, be quiet," Emile broke in. "Don't talk about something you have never known." "That I have never known!" Euphrasia answered.
We have already said that the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You deserve a pensum of fifty lines for such a misquotation.
The answer seemed to recall, with infinite pathos, Euphrasia's long-lost youth, and he had not thought of youth as a quality which could ever have pertained to her.
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