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She looked very nicely dressed, and her round face broke into dimples as she told me that Miss Darrell had sent her to the station, and that she meant to call in and have a chat with Mrs. Hathaway on her way, as she need not hurry back. Jem Hathaway was pretty Chatty's sweetheart. I knew him well.
She had hurried away out of reach of the warfare. No desire to crush her sister with a name was in Chatty's mind. It had seemed to her profane to speak of such a possibility at all. She realised so fully that everything was over, that all idea of change in her life was at an end for ever, that she heard with a little shiver, but with no warm personal feeling, the end of this discussion.
Warrender to take such a step as she had never done before nor thought herself capable of doing. To make overtures of any sort to a man who had shown a disposition to be her daughter's lover, yet had not said anything or committed himself in any way, would, twenty-four hours before, have seemed to her impossible. It would have seemed to her inconsistent with Chatty's dignity and her own.
He had not meant to say it, nor thought of it before this meeting: but now he seemed to be pledged to this step involuntarily, unwillingly; was it by some good angel, something that was working in Chatty's interests and for her sweet sake? Dick went back to town on the Monday, having taken no decisive step, nor said any decisive words.
If she only knew! but when Dick, feeling sadly injured and wounded, came to this thought, it so stung him that he turned round on the moment, and, neglecting all the seductions of waiting cabmen, walked quickly, furiously, to Lincoln's Inn, which he had been sadly neglecting. If she knew everything! it appeared to Dick that Chatty's clear dove's eyes (to which he all at once had attributed an insight and perception altogether above them) would slay him with the disdainful dart which pierces through and through subterfuge and falsehood. That he should have ventured, knowing what he knew, to approach her at all with the semblance of love: that he should have dared, oh, he knew, well he knew, how, once the light of clear truth was let down upon it, his conduct would appear, not the mere trifler who had amused himself and meant no more, not the fool of society, who made a woman think he loved her, and "behaved badly," and left her planté l
Naturally there was not a word said on the subject, which was far too delicate for words; but this was how Mrs. Warrender followed, as she believed, with an intensity which was full of tenderness, the current of her daughter's thoughts. And yet these were not Chatty's thoughts at all.
They sat and talked, not interested in anything they were saying, the mother seated between them, watching each, herself scarcely able to keep up the thread of coherent conversation, making now and then incursions on either side from which she was obliged to retreat hurriedly; referring now to some London experience which Chatty's extreme dignity and silence showed she did not want to be mentioned, or to something on the other side from which Theo withdrew with still more distinct reluctance to be put under discussion.
The mother, casting stealthy glances at her daughter, so sedulously, nervously busy, could only grope at a comprehension of what was in Chatty's mind.
He would often be at work in his garden by six, and now and then he would start for a long country walk, 'just to see Dame Earth put the finishing-touches to her toilet, he would say. But five had not struck when I slipped into Chatty's room half dressed. The girl looked at me with round sleepy eyes as I called her in a low voice.
She saw the angry flush on Minnie's face, and watched without seeming to watch her as she rose suddenly and left the room, almost throwing down the little spindle-legged table beside her. Just outside the door Mrs. Warrender heard Chatty's calm voice say to her sister, "Will you have these for your room, Minnie?" evidently offering her some of her flowers. Mrs. Warrender was not a wise woman.
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