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"Let us go to Romsey and see the Boyces." Carried unanimously. We take the train from the Waterloo Station two hours later. When we get down at Romsey, "Fly, sir?" asks the attentive porter carries our luggage, calls the fly and touches his hat thankfully for three-pence.
We'll dine about three, so that the servants can have the afternoon." "Of course we'll go," said Lily; "why not? We always do. And we'll have blind-man's-buff with all the Boyces, as we had last year, if uncle will ask them up." But the Boyces were not asked up for that occasion. But Lily, though she put on it all so brave a face, had much to suffer, and did in truth suffer greatly.
Exactly at twelve o'clock there was a little supper, which, no doubt, served to relieve Mrs Hearn's ennui, and at which Mrs Boyce also seemed to enjoy herself. As to the Mrs Boyces on such occasions, I profess that I feel no pity. They are generally happy in their children's happiness, or if not, they ought to be.
Mrs. Oliver Boyce gave a lifeless smile. "That is why I did myself the honour of giving you my confidence, ma'am. I think there are not two Colonel Oliver Boyces. The younger son of one of the Oxfordshire family." "Oh Lud, how should I know? I never looked into the grandfathers." "No, ma'am?" The tone was patronizing contempt. "You might have been the wiser of it.
"Send the landlord, please." The landlord comes, bowing low, and we make inquiries concerning the distance to Paultons, the estate where the Boyces have been spending the summer, and where we venture to hope they still are. He says it is a matter of four miles, and that we can have a fly over for six shillings.
The newspapers had told her something at intervals of her Merritt relations, for they were fashionable and important folk, but no one of them had crossed the Boyces' threshold since the old London days, wherein Marcella could still dimly remember the tall forms of certain Merritt uncles, and even a stately lady in a white cap whom she knew to have been her mother's mother.
Even her own mother had been astonished, and sometimes almost dismayed, by the strength of her will. Her mother knew well how it was with her now; but they who saw her frequently, and who did not know her as her mother knew her, the Mrs Boyces of her acquaintance, whispered among themselves that Lily Dale was not so soft of heart as people used to think.
Anyone in Boyce's position knew what that meant. It meant about thirty gawking, gaping people for whom he didn't care a hang. Why hadn't Anthony asked the Boyces to dine quietly with Edith and himself with me thrown in, for instance, if they wanted exotic assistance? Let me try, I said, to fix matters up.
"The war," said I, "is a solvent of many human complications." "It is indeed." Then she added: "I am going to have a little dinner party some time soon for the Boyces. I sounded him to-day and he practically promised. I'll ask the Lalehams. Of course you'll come. Now that things have shown themselves so topsy-turvy I've been wondering whether I should ask Betty."
Anything, anything rather than that the Fenimores and the Boyces should continue to dwell in the same little town. And there was Betty with all the inexplicable feminine whirring inside her socially reconciled with Boyce. Where the deuce was this reconciliation going to lead? I have told you how my lunatic love for Betty had stood revealed to me.
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