If he moved further, it was with the oddest air of seeking rather to study her remarks at his ease than to express an independence of them. He kept his face averted—he was so completely now in intelligent possession of her own. The sacrifice in question carried him even to the door of the court, where he once more stood so long that the persistent presentation of his back might at last have suggested either a confession or a request.
Mrs. Gracedew, a little spent with her sincerity, seated herself again in the great chair. The possibility that he yielded left her as vague in respect to a next step as the possibility that he merely wished to get rid of her. When he finally turned round his expression was an equal check to any power to feel she might have won. “You have,” he queerly smiled at her, “a standpoint quite your own and a style of eloquence that the few scraps of parliamentary training I’ve picked up don’t seem at all to fit me to deal with. Of course I don’t pretend, you know, that I don’t care for Covering.”
She was glad to hear it, if only perhaps for the almost comically ingenuous tone. “You haven’t even seen it yet. Aren’t you a bit afraid?”
He took a minute to reply, then replied—as if to make it up—with a grand collapse. “Yes; awfully. But if I am, it isn’t only Covering that makes me.”
“What else is it?”
“Everything. But it doesn’t in the least matter. You may be quite correct. When we talk of the house your voice comes to me somehow as the wind in its old chimneys.”
Her amusement distinctly revived. “I hope you don’t mean I roar!”
He blushed again. “No—nor yet perhaps that you whistle! I don’t believe the wind does either, here. It only whispers—and it sighs––”
“And I hope,” she broke in, “that it sometimes laughs!”
The sound she gave only made him, as he looked at her, more serious. “Whatever it does, it’s all right.”
“All right?” She laid her hand straight on his arm. “Then you promise?”
“Promise what?”
He had turned as pale as if she hurt him, and she took her hand away. “To meet Mr. Prodmore.”
“Oh, dear, no; not yet! I must wait—I must think.”
She looked disappointed. “When have you to answer him?”
“Oh, he gives me time!”
“I wouldn’t give you time,” Mrs. Gracedew cried with force. “I’d give you a shaking! For God’s sake, at any rate—go upstairs!”
“And literally find the dreadful man?” This was so little his personal idea that, distinctly dodging her pressure, he had already reached the safe quarter.
But it befell that at the same moment she saw Cora reappear on the upper landing—a circumstance that promised her a still better conclusion. “He’s coming down!”
Cora, in spite of this announcement, came down boldly enough without him and made directly for Mrs. Gracedew. Her plain purpose of treating this lady as an isolated presence allowed their companion perfect freedom to consider her arrival with sharp alarm. He stared, gave a wild glance at the open door, then searched the staircase. “I’ll go up!” he gasped; and he took three steps at a time.
V
The girl threw herself, in her flushed eagerness, straight upon the wonderful lady. “I’ve come back to you—I want to speak to you! May I confide in you?”
Her instant overflow left Mrs. Gracedew both astonished and amused. “You too? Why it is good we come over!”
“It is, indeed! You were so very kind to me and seemed to think me so curious.”
The mirth of her friend redoubled. “Well, I loved you for it, and it was nothing moreover to what you thought me!”
Miss Prodmore found no denial—she only presented her frank high colour. “I loved you. But I’m the worst! And I’m solitary.”
“Ah, so am I!” Mrs. Gracedew declared. “A very queer thing always is solitary! But, since we have that link, by all means confide.”
“Well, I was met here by tremendous news.” Cora produced it with a purple glow. “He wants me to marry him!”
Mrs. Gracedew looked amiably receptive, but as if she failed as yet to follow. “‘He’ wants you?”
“Papa, of course. He has settled it!”
“Settled what?”
“Why, the whole question. That I must take him.”
Mrs. Gracedew seemed to frown at her own scattered wits. “But, my dear, take whom?”
The girl looked surprised at this lapse of her powers. “Why, Captain Yule, who just went up.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Gracedew with a full stare. “Oh!” she repeated, looking straight away.
“I thought you would know,” Cora gently explained.
Her friend’s eyes came back to her. “I didn’t know.” She seemed also to wonder at two or three things more. “Has Captain Yule asked you?”
“No, but he will,” Cora was clear as a bell. “He’ll do it to keep the house. It’s mortgaged to papa, and Captain Yule buys it back.”
Her friend had an illumination that was rapid for the way it spread. “By marrying you?” she quavered.
“By giving me his name and his position. They’re awfully great, and they’re the price, don’t you see? My price. Papa’s price. Papa wants them.”
Mrs. Gracedew had caught hold; yet there were places where her grasp was weak. “But his name and his position, great as they may be, are his dreadful politics!”
Cora threw herself with energy into this advance. “You know about his dreadful politics? He’s to change them to get me. And if he gets me––”
“He keeps the house?”
“I go with it—he’s to have us both. But only if he changes. The question is—will he change?”
“I see. Will he change?”
Cora’s consideration went even further. “Has he changed?”
It went—a little too far for her companion. “My dear child, how in the world should I know?”
But Cora knew exactly how anyone would know. “He hasn’t seemed to care enough for the house. Does he care?”
Mrs. Gracedew moved away to the fireplace and stood a moment looking at the old armorial fire-back she had praised to its master—yet not, it must be added, as if she particularly saw it. “You had better ask him!”
They stood thus confronted, and the girl’s air was for a moment that of considering such a course. “If he does care, he’ll propose.”
Mrs. Gracedew, from where she stood, saw at this point the subject of their colloquy restored to view: Captain Yule was just upon them—he had turned the upper landing. The sight of him forced from her in a flash an ejaculation that she tried, however, to keep private—“He does care!” She passed swiftly back to the girl and, in a quick whisper: “He’ll propose!”
Cora, at his hurry, looked dismay—“Then I fly!” Casting about for a direction, she reached the door to the court.
Captain Yule, however, at this result of his return, expressed instant regret. “I drive Miss Prodmore away!”
Mrs. Gracedew eased off the situation. “It’s all right! I’ve something to say to Captain Yule.”
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