"For Anne?"
"For me, my dear. Trying to be a mother to somebody else"s child who doesn"t love you, and isn"t going to love you."
"Don"t try then."
"Don"t try?"
"Don"t try and be a mother to her. That"s what Anne doesn"t like."
They had got as far as that when John Severn stood in the doorway. He was retreating before their appearance of communion when she called him back.
"Don"t go, John. We want you. Here"s Robert telling me not to be a mother to Anne."
"And here"s Adeline worrying because she thinks Anne isn"t going to love her."
Severn sat down, considering it.
"It takes time," he said.
She looked at him, smiling under lowered brows.
"Time to love me?"
"Time for Anne to love you. She--she"s so desperately faithful."
The dressing-bell clanged from the belfry. Robert left them to finish a discussion that he found embarra.s.sing.
"I said I"d try to be a mother to her. I _have_ tried, John; but the little thing won"t let me."
"Don"t try too hard. Robert"s right. Don"t--don"t be a mother to her."
"What am I to be?"
"Oh, anything you like. A presence. A heavenly apparition. An impossible ideal. Anything but that."
"Do you think she"s going to hold out for ever?"
"Only against that. As long as she remembers. It puts her off."
"She doesn"t object to Robert being a father to her."
"No. Because he"s a better father than I am; and she knows it."
Adeline flushed. She understood the implication and was hurt, unreasonably. He saw her unreasonableness and her pain.
"My dear Adeline, Anne"s mother will always be Anne"s mother. I was never anywhere beside Alice. I"ve had to choose between the Government of India and my daughter. You"ll observe that I don"t try to be a father to Anne; and that, in consequence, Anne likes me. But she"ll _love_ Robert."
"And "like" me? If I don"t try."
"Give her time. Give her time."
He rose, smiling down at her.
"You think I"m unreasonable?"
"The least bit in the world. For the moment."
"My dear John, if I didn"t love your little girl I wouldn"t care."
"Love her. Love her. She"ll love you too, in her rum way. She"s fighting you now. She wouldn"t fight if she didn"t feel she was beaten. n.o.body could hold out against you long."
She looked at the clock.
"Heavens! I must go and dress."
She thought: "_He_ didn"t hold out against me, poor dear, five minutes.
I suppose he"ll always remember that I jilted him for Robert."
And now he wanted her to see that if Anne"s mother would be always Anne"s mother, his wife would be always his wife. Was he desperately faithful, too? Always?
How could he have been? It was characteristic of Alice Severn that when she had to choose between her husband and her daughter she had chosen Anne. It was characteristic of John that when he had to choose between his wife and his Government, he had not chosen Alice. He must have had adventures out in India, conducted with the discretion becoming in a Commissioner and a Member of the Legislative Council, but adventures.
Perhaps he was going back to one of them.
Severn dressed hastily and went into the schoolroom where Anne sat reading in her solitary hour between supper time and bed-time. He took her on his knee, and she snuggled there, rubbing her head against his shoulder. He thought of Adeline, teasing, teasing for the child"s caresses, and every time repulsed.
"Anne," he said, "don"t you think you can love Auntie Adeline?"
Anne straightened herself. She looked at him with candid eyes. "I don"t know, Daddy, really, if I can."
"Can"t you love her a little?"
"I--I would, if she wouldn"t try--"
"Try?"
"To do like Mummy did."
Robert was right. He knew it, but he wanted to be sure.
Anne went on. "It"s no use, you see, her trying. It only makes me think of Mummy more."
"Don"t you _want_ to think of her?"
"Yes. But I want to think by myself, and Auntie Adeline keeps on getting in the way."
"Still, she"s awfully kind to you, isn"t she?"
"Awfully."