“A quarter to eight? I must go,” she said. “I will see you immediately after dinner.”
She turned back as she reached the door irresolutely.
“I suppose you aren’t going to change that absurd plan of yours,” she asked hopefully.
Gilbert had recovered his equanimity.
“I do not know to which absurd plan you are referring,” he said.
“Spending your honeymoon in town,” she replied.
“I don’t think Gilbert should be bothered about that.”
It was the girl who spoke, her first intrusion into the conversation. Her mother glanced at her sharply.
“In this case, my dear,” she said freezingly, “it is a matter in which I am more concerned than yourself.”
Gilbert hastened to relieve the girl of the brunt of the storm. Mrs. Cathcart was not slow to anger, and although Gilbert himself had never felt the lash of her bitter tongue, he had a shrewd suspicion that his future wife had been a victim more than once.
“It is absolutely necessary that I should be in town on the days I referred to,” he said. “I have asked you—”
“To postpone the wedding?” said Mrs. Cathcart. “My dear boy, I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t a reasonable request, now was it?”
She smiled at him as sweetly as her inward annoyance allowed her.
“I suppose it wasn’t,” he said dubiously.
He said no more, but waited until the door had closed behind her, then he turned quickly to the girl.
“Edith,” he said, speaking rapidly, “I want you to do something for me.”
“You want me to do something?” she asked in surprise.
“Yes, dearest. I must go away now. I want you to find some excuse to make to your mother. I’ve remembered a most important matter which I have not seen to—”
He spoke hesitatingly, for he was no ready liar.
“Going away!”
It was surprise rather than disappointment, he noticed, and was pardonably irritated.
“You can’t go now,” she said, and that look of fear came into her eyes. “Mother would be so angry. The people are arriving.”
From where he stood he had seen three motor broughams draw up almost simultaneously in front of the house.
“I must go,” he said desperately. “Can’t you get me out in any way? I don’t want to meet these people, I’ve very good reasons.”
She hesitated a moment.
“Where are your hat and coat?” she asked.
“In the hall—you will just have time,” he said.
She was in the hall and back again with his coat, led him to the farther end of the drawing-room, through a door which communicated with the small library beyond. There was a way here to the garage and to the mews at the back of the house.
She watched the tall, striding figure with a troubled gaze, then as he disappeared from view she fastened the library door and came back to the drawing-room in time to meet her mother.
“Where is Gilbert?” asked Mrs. Cathcart.
“Gone,” said the girl.
“Gone!”
Edith nodded slowly.
“He remembered something very important and had to go back to his house.”
“But of course he is returning?”
“I don’t think so, mother,” she said quietly. “I fancy that the ‘something’ is immensely pressing.”
“But this is nonsense!” Mrs. Cathcart stamped her foot. “Here are all the people whom I have specially invited to meet him. It’s disgraceful!”
“But, mother—”
“Don’t ‘but mother’ me, for God’s sake!” said Mrs. Cathcart.
They were alone, the guests were assembling in the larger drawing-room, and there was no need for the elder woman to disguise her feelings.
“You sent him away, I suppose?” she said. “I don’t blame him. How can you expect to keep a man at your side if you treat him as though he were a grocer calling for orders?”
The girl listened wearily, and did not raise her eyes from the carpet.
“I do my best,” she said in a low voice.
“Your worst must be pretty bad if that is your best. After I’ve strained my every effort to bring to you one of the richest young men in London, you might at least pretend that his presence is welcome; but if he were the devil himself you couldn’t show greater reluctance at meeting him or greater relief at his departure.”
“Mother!” said the girl, and her eyes were filled with tears.
“Don’t ‘mother’ me, please!” said Mrs. Cathcart deliberately. “I am sick to death of your faddiness and your prejudices. What on earth do you want? What am I to get you?”
She threw out her arms in exasperated despair.
“I don’t want to marry at all,” said the girl in a low voice. “My father would never have forced me to marry.”
It was a daring thing to say, an exhibition of greater boldness than she had ever shown before in her encounters with her mother. But lately there had come to her a new courage. That despair which had made her dumb glowed now to rage, the fires of rebellion smouldered in her heart; and, albeit the demonstrations of her growing resentment were few and far between, her courage grew upon her venturing.
“Your father!” breathed Mrs. Cathcart, white with rage, “am I to have your father thrown at my head? Your father was a fool! A fool!” She almost hissed the word. “He ruined me as he ruined you because he hadn’t sufficient sense to keep the money he had inherited. I thought he was a clever man. I looked up to him for twenty years as the embodiment of all that was wise and kind and genial, and all those twenty years he was frittering away his competence on every hair-brained scheme which the needy adventurers of finance brought to him. He would not have forced you! I swear he wouldn’t!” She laughed bitterly. “He would have married you to the chauffeur if your heart was that way inclined. He was all amiability and incompetence, all good-nature and inefficiency. I hate your father!”
Her blue eyes were opened to their widest extent and the cold glare of hate was indeed apparent to the shrinking girl. “I hate him every time I have to entertain a shady stockbroker for the advantage I may receive from his
