“It is this,” he said. “It is quite simple; it will cost nobody anything, and give a great deal of pleasure to me. I want you to let me be Geoff’s tutor. Wait a moment before you answer. It will be no trouble. I have absolutely nothing to do. My father left all his affairs in complete order; all my farms are let, everything going on quite smoothly. And you must remember our little bit of a place is very different from all you have to think of. No, I don’t want to thrust myself upon you. I will ride over, or drive over, or walk over, every day. The distance is nothing; it will do me all the good in the world. And, honours or no honours, I have plenty of scholarship for Geoff. Ah, don’t refuse me; it will be such a pleasure. I have set my heart on being tutor to Geoff.”
She had listened to him with a great many endeavours to break in. She stopped him at last almost by force, putting out her hand and taking his when he came to a little pause for breath. “Mr. Warrender,” she said, almost as breathless as he, tears in her eyes, her voice almost choked, “how can I thank you for the thought! God bless you for the thought. Oh, how good, how kind, how full of feeling! I hope if you are ever in trouble you will have as good a friend as you have been to me.”
“If you will be my friend, Lady Markland—”
“That I will,” she cried, “all my life; but never be able to make up to you for this.” She had put out both her hands, which he held trembling, but dared not stoop to kiss lest he should betray himself. After a moment, half laughing, half sobbing, she bade him sit down again beside her. “You are very, very good,” she said; “but there are a few things to be talked over. First, you are going back to Oxford in a week or two.”
“I am not going up this term; that is settled already.”
“Not going up! But I thought you must go up. You have not taken your degree.”
“Oh, that is not till next year,” he said lightly, confident in her ignorance of details. “There is no reason why I should hurry; and, in fact, I had made up my mind some time since, so there is no difficulty so far as that goes.”
She looked at him with keen scrutiny; her mind in a moment flashing over the whole course of their conversation like a light over a landscape, yet seeing it imperfectly, as a landscape under a sudden flash can only be seen with a perception of its chief features, but nothing more. The young man had been tenderly kind to her all through. Since the moment when he came into this very room to tell her of her husband’s accident he had never forsaken her. She had not thought that such chivalrous kindness existed in the world, but she was yet young enough and inexperienced enough to believe in it and in its complete disinterestedness; for what return could she ever make for all he had done? And now, was this a crowning service, an offer of brotherly kindness which was almost sublime, or—what was it? She looked at him as if she could see into his soul. “Oh,” she said, “I know your generosity. I feel as if I could not trust you when you say it doesn’t matter. How could I ever forgive myself if you were injuring your own prospects for Geoff!—if it was for Geoff.”
For Geoff! Warrender laughed aloud, almost roughly, in a way which half offended her. Could anybody suppose for a moment that for that ugly, precocious little boy—? “You need not distress yourself on that account, Lady Markland,” he said. “It is not for Geoff—I had made up my mind on that question long ago—but by way of occupying my idle time—And if you think me good enough—”
“Oh, good enough!” she said. But she was too much alarmed and startled to make any definite reply. Almost for the first time she became conscious that Theo was neither a boy nor a visionary young hero of the Sir Galahad kind, but a man like other men. The further discovery which awaited her, that she herself was not a dignified recluse from life, a queen mother ruling the affairs of her son’s kingdom for him and not for herself: but in other people’s eyes, at least, a young woman, still open to other thoughts, was still far from Lady Markland’s mind.
XX
“You will give me my answer after you have thought it all over.”
“Certainly you shall have an answer: and in the meantime my thanks; or if there is any word more grateful than thanks—more than words can say—”
He turned to look back as he closed the little gate for foot passengers at the end of the bare road which was called the avenue, and took off his hat as she waved her hand to him. Then she turned back again towards the house. It was a ruddy October afternoon, the sun going down in gold and crimson, with already the deeper, more gorgeous colours of winter in the sky. Geoff was hanging upon her arm, clinging to it with both of his, walking in her very shadow, as was his wont.
“Why do you thank Theo Warrender like that? What has he done for us?” asked Geoff.
“I don’t think, dear, that you should talk of him in that familiar way. Theo! He is old enough to be”—here she paused for a moment, not pleased with the suggestion, and then added—“he might be your elder brother, at
