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When, one night, Betty took her with Ughtred to the theatre, it was to see a play written by an American, played by American actors, produced by an American manager. They had even engaged in theatrical enterprise, it seemed, their actors played before London audiences, London actors played in American theatres, vibrating almost yearly between the two continents and reaping rich harvests.
But, alone in her room, after she went upstairs, the face reflecting itself in the mirror was pale and its black brows were drawn together. She sat down at the dressing-table, and, seeing the paled face, drew the black brows closer, confronting a complicating truth. "If I were free to take Rosalie and Ughtred home to-morrow," she thought, "I could not bear to go. I should suffer too much."
"Pokes her nose into 'em often enough," Stanley muttered. Lady Fanfar again, and Mrs. Sleesor, and even Hilda Martlett, were interested in their husbands, and Miss Bawtrey, of course, interested in everything. As for Maude Ughtred, all talk would be the same to her; she was always week-ending. Stanley need not worry it would be all right; some real work would get done, some real advance be made.
He had an idea that Lady Anstruthers would have been swiftly and lightly swept back to New York, and Sir Nigel left to his own devices, in which case Stornham Court and its village would gradually have crumbled to decay. It was for Sir Ughtred Anstruthers the place was being restored. She was quite clear on the matter of entail.
"I suppose that is all they have to depend upon," she thought. "And the stables are like the gardens." She found Lady Anstruthers and Ughtred waiting for her upon the terrace, each of them regarding her with an expression suggestive of repressed curiosity as she approached. Lady Anstruthers flushed a little and went to meet her with an eager kiss.
"I shall not TRY, Ughtred," said Betty, a remote spark kindling in the deeps of the pupils of her steel-blue eyes. "I shall not TRY. Now I am going to ask you some questions." Before he left her she had asked many questions which were pertinent and searching, and she had learned things she realised she could have learned in no other way and from no other person.
No parallel to "Master" had been in vogue among them. Lady Anstruthers was not like her sister. She was a little thing, and both she and Master Ughtred seemed fond of talking of New York. She had not been home for years, and the youngster had never seen it at all. He had some queer ideas about America, and seemed never to have seen anything but Stornham and the village.
A forlorn nod was the answer. "And since then he has done as he chose, and he has not chosen to care for Stornham. And once he made you write to father, to ask for more money?" "I did it once. I never would do it again. He has tried to make me. He always says it is to save Stornham for Ughtred." "Nothing can take Stornham from Ughtred. It may come to him a ruin, but it will come to him."
At this moment she was a silly, middle-aged woman, who did not know what to do. For a few seconds Bettina wondered if she was glad to see her, or only felt awkward and unequal to the situation. "I can't believe you," she cried out again, and began to shiver. "Betty! Little Betty? No! No! it isn't!" She turned to the boy, who had lifted his chin from his stick, and was staring. "Ughtred!
Mina Thalberg, pulling down the embroidered frocks over the round legs of her English-looking children, seemed to narrow the width of the Atlantic Ocean between Liverpool and the docks on the Hudson River. She returned to the hotel with an appetite for lunch and a new expression in her eyes which made Ughtred stare at her. "Mother," he said, "you look different. You look well.
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