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You wouldn't ever say it to him, would you, Augustine." There was a note at once of urgency and appeal in her voice. "Of course not, since you don't wish it," her son replied. "I ask you just because it happens that your father is coming," Lady Channice said, "tomorrow; and, you see, if you had this in your mind, you might have said something. He is coming to spend the afternoon."
The stretch of lawn sloped to a sunken stone wall; beyond the wall a stream ran sluggishly in a ditch-like channel; on the left the grounds were shut in by a sycamore wood, and beyond were flat meadows crossed in the distance by lines of tree-bordered roads. It was a peaceful, if not a cheering prospect. Lady Channice was fond of it.
This attitude, accepted by the few, was resented by the many, so that hardly anybody ever called upon Lady Channice. And so it was that Mrs.
Augustine and his mother both studied during the day, the same studies, for Lady Channice, to a great extent, shared her son's scholarly pursuits. From his boyhood a studious, grave, yet violent little boy he had been, his fits of passionate outbreak quelled, as he grew older, by the mere example of her imperturbability beside him she had thus shared everything.
"He has always, in everything, been so thoughtful for my comfort and happiness," said Lady Channice. Augustine did not look at her: his eyes were fixed on the sky outside and he seemed to be reflecting though not over her words. "So that I couldn't bear him ever to hear anything of that sort," Lady Channice went on, "that either of us could find it gloomy, I mean.
Grey did not like to give Lady Channice "stingers"; therefore she now became red and wondered at herself. Lady Channice had lifted her eyes and it was as if Mrs. Grey saw walls and moats and impenetrable thickets glooming in them. She answered for Augustine: "My husband and I have always been in perfect agreement on the matter." Mrs. Grey tried a cheerful laugh; "You won him over, too, no doubt."
Do you really want him to be a philosopher, my dear?" "Indeed I think it would be very nice if he could be a philosopher," said Lady Channice, smiling, for though she had often to evade Mrs. Grey's tyranny she liked her good temper. She seemed in her reply to float, lightly and almost gaily above Mrs. Grey, and away from her. Mrs.
And what wonder that he was little there; he had a wide life; he was a brilliant man; she was a stupid young girl; in looking back, no longer young, no longer stupid, Lady Channice thought that she could see it all quite clearly. She had seemed to him a sweet, good girl, and he cared for her and wanted a wife.
"Entirely." "Well, Augustine," Mrs. Grey turned to the young man again, "I don't succeed with your mother, but I hope for better luck with you. You're a man, now, and not yet, at all events, a monk. Won't you dine with us on Saturday night?" Now Mrs. Grey was kind; but she had never asked Lady Channice to dinner. The line had been drawn, firmly drawn years ago and by Mrs. Grey herself at tea.
His face wore its usual look of good-temper, but it wore more than its usual look of indifference for his wife's son. "Ah, tell Lady Channice, will you," he said over his shoulder to the maid. "How d'ye do, Augustine:" and, as usual, he strolled up to the fire. Augustine watched him as he crossed the room and said nothing. The maid had closed the door.
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