Ruth flushed an angry red and said she hated churches.
“Ruth is a stout Nonconformist, Miss Mole, but we mustn’t be narrow. And there are other beauties in Radstowe. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’ You recognise that, Ruth, Ethel? And there are other interests. Radstowe was once the most important port in England, but with the increase in tonnage she has lost her place. The big ships can’t get up the river. It is a tidal river—most picturesque in its gorge—you must be sure to see that, too—but the channel is very narrow, with large deposits of mud.” And at some length and with what accuracy Hannah could not judge, he explained how these deposits were made. “Dredging goes on, but does very little good. It is a great misfortune for our trade.”
“Yes,” said Hannah, deciding to be dumb no longer as she could not be deaf, “but it’s well worth it. At low tide the mud is beautiful. All the colours of the rainbow, and it makes such a nice promenade for the gulls.”
Mr. Corder was like a horse bewildered by a check in full gallop. “So you have seen our river?”
“Oh yes,” Hannah said lightly, “I’ve known Radstowe all my life.”
“Ah, really—” said Mr. Corder and, suddenly, Radstowe became of very little importance. “Ruth, will you ring the bell. I think we are ready for the pudding.”
VIII
Family loyalties and disloyalties are like currents in the sea: they intermingle, jostle each other, change places and are diverted or united according to the strength of the obstacles they meet, and Hannah, sailing alone, like her bottled ship, on this unknown ocean, found that her little craft, which might be upset at any moment, was quite robust enough to affect these currents. Ruth, undoubtedly, had been embarrassed by her father’s instructive monologue, but she could not tolerate his discomfiture by a stranger, though the stranger’s intention might have been innocent, and in the mild amiability she showed him until the meal was over and the few remarks she made to Ethel, who seemed to have missed what Ruth resented, she proclaimed her allegiance to the Corder clan.
Her tongue was always Hannah’s danger and its readiness had sometimes been her undoing. She could control the expression of her face, but the temptation of a quick reply or a disconcerting statement was too much for her, and she would have been superhuman if she had resisted this one and remarkably careless of her future if she had not tried to disarm suspicion by a quietly sensible demeanour while her duties were explained by Ethel and they made a tour of the house together.
When they returned to the dining-room, Ruth had her homework spread out on the green serge table cover, and a young man, with his shoulders wedged under the mantelpiece, was warming his back at the fire. He was rather a beautiful young man, Hannah thought, as she looked at his slenderness and the studied carelessness of his dark hair, but one, she decided the next moment, who would have to be kept in his place, for he was returning her glance quizzically, and the lift of his eyebrows condoled with her while his smile invited her to share his amusement at the alien atmosphere in which he and she found themselves. This was drawing a bow at a venture, but he was safe enough, for if the arrow missed its mark no one need know where he had aimed it, and Hannah’s demure response to his greeting did not discountenance him.
“I’ve been trying to make Ruth tell me about you,” he said gaily, “but she’s like David Balfour. She’s an awful poor hand at a description.”
“I didn’t tell you a single thing!” Ruth cried.
“And now, methinks, you do protest too much.”
“But I could tell you something about yourself! I knew you’d begin showing off at once!”
“No, no,” Wilfrid protested genially. “I was only letting Miss Mole know that this is a cultured household—as indeed, it ought to be. We have Familiar Quotations on our bookshelves and they save a deal of trouble and hard work.”
“If you’re hinting that Father hasn’t read as much as you have—”
“I didn’t mention the uncle, dear child,” Wilfrid said gently. “But all the same,” he dropped his pose of an ironical young man and became a natural one, “all the same, I’ll bet you he hasn’t. Bet you anything you like. I don’t blame him. He’s a busy man. He’s the kind of man Familiar Quotations was made for, and he’d be a fool if he didn’t take advantage of it.”
“He’s got more sense in his little finger—” Ruth began. She looked as if she was going to cry. “It’s you that’s the fool! And I don’t know how I’m going to get my homework finished with so many people in the room! I shall have to do it in my bedroom. And I don’t care if I do catch cold,” she said, in answer to Ethel’s expostulations, and from the door, she gave half a glance at Hannah. “It won’t be my fault, anyhow.”
Ethel looked anxiously at Hannah. “I don’t know what’s the matter with her,” she said. “And I don’t know what Miss Mole will think of us,” she said to Wilfrid.
“No, I don’t suppose we shall ever know that. Well, I’m sorry I teased the child. Is the uncle in?”
“Yes,” Ethel was anxious again, “and I said you had an engagement.”
“So I had. An important committee meeting of the Medical Students’ Temperance Society—if he wants to know.”
“Oh, Wilfrid! Really?” Ethel clutched the blue beads round her neck and smiled with an alarming joyfulness.
Wilfrid dropped his eyelids. “But if he doesn’t want to know,” he said drawlingly, “it wasn’t!” and
