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Until he can show me he's done with that woman, until he can prove he's given up this betting, until until the heaven's fallen, I'll have no more to do with him!" To Margery Pendyce, with all her senses quivering, that saying, "Until the heaven's fallen," was frightening beyond the rest.
The thrushes were out already after worms. A squirrel scampering along a branch stopped and looked at Mrs. Pendyce, and Mrs. Pendyce looked absently at the squirrel from behind the little handkerchief with which she was drying her eyes. 'That poor man! she thought 'poor solitary creature! There's the sun! And it seemed to her that it was the first time the sun had shone all this fine hot year.
And those women who saw him with his uncovered head smiled, and thought: 'What a fine-looking man! But George Pendyce, who saw him from the window of the Stoics' Club, smiled a different smile; the sight of him was always a little unpleasant to George.
"George had better take care," he said; "he's entirely dependent on me." And as if with those words he had summed up the situation, the philosophy of a system vital to his son, he no longer frowned. On Mrs. Pendyce those words had a strange effect. They stirred within her terror. It was like seeing her son's back bared to a lifted whip-lash; like seeing the door shut against him on a snowy night.
For, perceiving how George Pendyce and hundreds of other young men "to the manner born" had lived from their birth up in no connection whatever with the struggles and sufferings of life, and fearing lest, when Life in her careless and ironical fashion brought them into abrupt contact with ill-bred events they should make themselves a nuisance by their cries of dismay and wonder, Nature had devised a mask and shaped it to its highest form within the portals of the Stoics' Club.
Pendyce came close, and since air and quiet were essential to her at that moment, he bent over and tried by every means in his power to rouse her; and she, who longed to be let alone, sympathised with him, for she knew that it was natural that he should do this. In spite of his efforts the feeling of faintness passed, and, taking his hand, she stroked it gratefully.
"Oh," she stammered, "I must get in I must get in!" She took the knocker herself, and fluttered it against the door. "You see," said the artist, "they're all alike; these knockers are as stiff' as pokers." He again curved his hand over his eyes. Mrs. Pendyce leaned against the door; her knees were trembling violently. 'What is happening? she thought. 'Perhaps he's only asleep, perhaps Oh God!
It was clear that she was trying to gain time. Gregory began pacing up and down. "Paramor is a man for whom I have the highest respect. I would trust him before anyone." It was clear that he, too, was trying to gain time. "Oh, mind my daffodils, please!" Gregory went down on his knees, and raised the bloom that he had trodden on. He then offered it to Mrs. Pendyce.
All the conservative strength of his nature, all the immense dumb force of belief in established things, all that stubborn hatred and dread of change, that incalculable power of imagining nothing, which, since the beginning of time, had made Horace Pendyce the arbiter of his land, rose up within his sorely tried soul. "What on earth's that to do with it?" he cried in a rage. "You women!
I should say Bethany himself was the only one in the dark. There's no doubt Lady Rose was to blame!" Mr. Pendyce was speaking. Mrs. Bellew smiled. "My sympathies are all with Lady Rose. What do you say, George?" George frowned. "I always thought," he said, "that Bethany was an ass." "George," said Mr. Pendyce, "is immoral. All young men are immoral. I notice it more and more.
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