She rose suddenly and announced that she was about to retire. It saved
them for the moment, for that day; he muttered something
incomprehensible and she was gone.
Isabel Penny returned and took Mrs. Winscombe's place before the fire.
She spoke trivially, at random intervals. A great longing swept over him
to tell his mother everything, try to find an escape in her wise
counsel; but his emotion seemed so ugly that he could not lay it before
her. Besides, he had a conviction that it would be hopeless: he was
gone. She was discussing Ludowika now. "Really," she said, "they seem
very well matched, a good arrangement." She was referring, he realized,
to the Winscombes' experience. He never thought of Felix Winscombe as
married, Ludowika's husband; he had ceased to think of him at all. The
present moment banished everything else. "She has a quality usually
destroyed by life about a Court," the leisurely voice went on; "she
seems quite happy here, for a little, in a way simple. But, curiously
enough, she disturbs your father. He can't laugh with her as he usually
does with attractive women."
It was natural, Howat thought, that Gilbert Penny should be uneasy
before such a direct reminder of the setting from which he had taken
Isabel Howat.
Pages:
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94