A Country Gentleman and His Family

might be, perhaps, a faint almost imperceptible difference in Chatty, a little dignity like that which her mother had discovered in her, something that was not altogether the simple girl, younger than her years, whom Mrs. Warrender had brought to town. On the very last morning of all, Dick had also a look which was not very easy to be interpreted. While they were on their way to the station he began suddenly to talk of Underwood and the Wilberforces, as if he had forgotten them all this time, and now suddenly remembered that there were such people in the world. “Did I ever tell you,” he said, “that one of the houses in the parish belongs to an uncle of mine, who bought it merely as an investment, and let it?”

“We were talking of that,” said Mrs. Warrender. “Mr. Wilberforce hoped you had persuaded your uncle to leave the drainage alone in order to make a nuisance and drive undesirable tenants away.”

He laughed in a hurried, breathless way, then said quickly, “Is it true that the people who were there are gone?”

“Quite true. They seem to have melted away without anyone knowing, in a single night. They were not desirable people.”

“So I heard: and gone without leaving any sign?”

“Have they not paid their rent?” said Mrs. Warrender.

“Oh, I don’t mean to say that. I know nothing about that. My uncle⁠—” and here he stopped, with an embarrassment which, though Mrs. Warrender was an unsuspicious woman, attracted her notice. “I mean,” said Cavendish, perceiving this, and putting force upon himself, “he will of course be glad to get rid of people who apparently could do his property no good.”

And after this his spirits seemed to rise a little. He told them that he had some friends near Highcombe, who sometimes in the autumn offered him a few days’ shooting. If he got such an invitation this autumn might he come? “It is quite a handy distance from London, just the Saturday-to-Monday distance,” he added, looking at Mrs. Warrender with an expression which meant a great deal, which had in it a question, a supplication. And she was so imprudent a woman! and no shadow of Minnie at hand to restrain her. It was on her very lips to give the invitation he asked. Some good angel of a class corresponding in the celestial world to that of Minnie in this, only stopped her in time, and gave a little obliqueness to the response.

“I hope we shall see you often,” she said, which was pleasant but discouraging, and then began to talk about the Eustace Thynnes, who were at present of great use to her as a diversion to any more embarrassing subject of conversation. Chatty scarcely spoke during this drive, which seemed to her the last they should take together. The streets flying behind them, the scenes of the brief drama falling back into distance, the tranquillity of home before, and all this exciting episode of life becoming as if it had never been, occupied her mind. She had settled all that in her evening meditation. It was all over; this was what she said to herself. She must not allow even to her own heart any thought of renewal, any idea that the break was temporary. Chatty was aware that she had received all his overtures, all his amiabilities (which was what it seemed to come to) with great and unconcealed pleasure. To think that he had nothing but civility in his mind all the time gave a blow to her pride, which was mortal. She did not wear her pride upon her sleeve, though she had worn her heart upon it. Her nature indeed was full of the truest humility; but there was a latent pride which, when it was reached, vibrated through all her being. No more, she was saying to herself. Oh, never more. She had been deceived, though most likely he had never wished to deceive her. It was she who had deceived herself; but that was not possible, ever again.

“We have not thanked you half enough,” said Mrs. Warrender, as he stood at the door of the railway carriage. “I will tell Theo that you have been everything to us. If you are as good to all the mothers and sisters of all your old schoolfellows⁠—”

“You do me a great wrong,” he said, “as if I thought of you as the mother of⁠—” His eyes strayed to Chatty, who met them with a smile which was quite steady. She was a little pale, but that was all. “Some time,” he added hastily, holding Mrs. Warrender’s hand, “I may be able to explain myself a little better than that.”

“Shall I say if you are as kind to all forlorn ladies astray in London?”

Dick’s face clouded over as if (she thought) he were about to cry. Men don’t cry in England, but there is a kind of mortification, humiliation, a sense of being persistently misunderstood, and of having no possibility of mending matters, which is so insupportable that the lip must quiver under it, even when garnished with a moustache. “I hope you don’t really think that of me,” he cried. “Don’t! there is no time to tell you how very different⁠—But surely you know⁠—something more than that⁠—”

The train was in motion already and Chatty had shaken hands with him before. She received the last look of his eyes, half indignant, appealing, though in words it was to her mother he was speaking; but made no sign. And it was only Mrs. Warrender who looked out of the window and waved her hand to him, as he was left behind. Chatty⁠—Chatty who was so gentle, so little apt to take anything upon her, even to judge for herself, was it possible that on this point she was less softhearted than her mother? This thought went through him like an arrow as he stood and saw the carriages glide away in a long curving line. She was