"I daresay your father could come, all right,"Thorpe suggested. "I'd rather have him than almost anyone else. Would you mind asking him--or shall I?"An abrupt silence marked this introduction of a subject upon which the couple had differed openly. Thorpe, through processes unaccountable to himself, had passed from a vivid dislike of General Kervick to a habit of mind in which he thoroughly enjoyed having him about.
The General had been twice to High Thorpe, and on each occasion had so prolonged his stay that, in retrospect, the period of his absence seemed inconsiderable.
The master now, thinking upon it in this minute of silence, was conscious of having missed him greatly. He would not have been bored to the extremity of threatening to go to London, if Kervick had been here. The General was a gentleman, and yet had the flexible adaptability of a retainer; he had been trained in discipline, and hence knew how to defer without becoming fulsome or familiar;he was a man of the world and knew an unlimited number of racy stories, and even if he repeated some of them unduly, they were better than no stories at all. And then, there was his matchless, unfailing patience in playing chess or backgammon or draughts or bezique, whatever he perceived that the master desired.
"If you really wish it," Edith said at last, coldly.
"But that's what I don't understand," Thorpe urged upon her with some vigour. "If I like him, I don't see why his own daughter----""Oh, need we discuss it?" she broke in, impatiently.
"If I'm an unnatural child, why then I am one, and may it not be allowed to pass at that?" A stormy kind of smile played upon her beautifully-cut lips as she added:
"Surely one's filial emotions are things to be taken for granted--relieved from the necessity of explanation."Thorpe grinned faintly at the hint of pleasantry, but he did not relinquish his point. "Well--unless you really veto the thing--I think I'd like to tell him to come,"he said, with composed obstinacy. Upon an afterthought he added: "There's no reason why he shouldn't meet the Duke, is there?""No specific reason," she returned, with calm coolness of tone and manner. "And certainly I do not see myself in the part of Madame Veto.""All right then--I'll send him a wire," said Thorpe.
His victory made him uneasy, yet he saw no way of abandoning it with decorum.
As the two, standing in a silence full of tacit constraint, looked aimlessly away from the terrace, they saw at the same instant a vehicle with a single horse coming rather briskly up the driveway, some hundreds of yards below.
It was recognizable at once as the local trap from Punsey station, and as usual it was driven by a boy from the village. Seated beside this lad was a burly, red-bearded man in respectable clothes, who, to judge from the tin-box and travelling-bags fastened on behind, seemed coming to High Thorpe to stay.
"Who on earth is that?" asked Thorpe, wonderingly.
The man was obviously of the lower class, yet there seemed something about him which invited recognition.
"Presumably it's the new head-gardener," she replied with brevity.
Her accent recalled to Thorpe the fact that there had been something disagreeable in their conversation, and the thought of it was unpleasant to him.
"Why, I didn't know you had a new man coming," he said, turning to her with an overture of smiling interest.
"Yes," she answered, and then, as if weighing the proffered propitiation and rejecting it, turned slowly and went into the house.
The trap apparently ended its course at some back entrance: he did not see it again. He strolled indoors, after a little, and told his man to pack a bag for London, and order the stanhope to take him to the train.
