"What boy?" asked Edmund, in a tone of indifference.
"Edgar Tonmore."
"Is Edgar here, then?"
"Oh, no; it won"t be at once. He has gone to Scotland, but he will be back before we leave London."
"Really he is an excellent fellow. I don"t see why you should be anxious."
"But Molly is an orphan," she said plaintively, eyeing him quickly as she spoke.
"Even so, orphans marry and live happily ever after."
"But I"m not sure she will live happily."
"Why not?"
"I don"t think she cares for him."
"Then I suppose she will refuse."
"But people so often make mistakes. I don"t think dear Molly knows her own mind, and it is so natural that she should not confide in me as I am in her mother"s place."
"Leave things alone. Edgar will find out if she likes him or not."
"Will he? oh well, it"s a comfort that you take that view." And she then changed the topic, being of opinion that nothing more could be done with it. But no doubt the effect produced in Edmund was an increase of interest in Molly"s affairs. It would be exceedingly tiresome if she should marry this attractive but penniless boy, as he knew him to be, under the impression that she possessed enough money for them both.
Edmund had only that morning received certain intelligence of the whereabouts of young Akers, the son of the old stud-groom.
From Florence had come the information that Madame Danterre was supposed to be in failing health, and that she had been seldom seen to drive out of her secluded grounds this summer, whereas last year she used to go long distances in her old-fashioned English carriage in the evenings.
Thus it became a matter of thrilling interest whether the great fortune would pa.s.s to Molly before any evidence could be produced of the existence of the last will in which he so firmly believed.
"I believe the old sinner knows all about it, even if she hasn"t got it," Grosse murmured to himself.
Finally he concluded that it would be better if Molly married money and not poverty, and did not smile on the penniless Edgar Tonmore.
Therefore, finding himself alone with her during church time next morning, he thought no harm of trying to put a little spoke in the wheel to prevent that affair going too easily. But first he asked her why she did not go to church.
"I might say, why don"t you go yourself?" said Molly, "but I don"t mind telling you that I hardly ever do go."
"Why not?"
"Why not?" Molly was leaning back in a low chair under the shadow of the cedars, as still as if she would never move again, as still as the greyhound that was lying by her. "I hate going to church. None of it seems beautiful to me as it does to Adela. My aunt used to say that we were not fortunate in our clergyman, but personally I don"t like any clergymen. I am anti-clerical like a Frenchwoman."
"Have you any French blood?"
"Yes; my mother was French."
"But you do good works; I remember how you nursed the kitchenmaid at Groombridge."
"I like to stop pain, but not because it is a good work. I can"t stand all the fuss about good works and committees, and nonsense about loving the poor. It"s a way rich people have to make themselves feel comfortable. Don"t you think so?"
"No, I don"t. I know people who make themselves exceedingly uncomfortable because they give away half what they possess."
"Really," said Molly, a little contemptuously. She knew that he was thinking of Rose Bright. "My opinion is that doing good works means to bustle about trying to get as much of other people"s money to give away as you can, without giving any yourself."
Edmund did not like to suggest that this opinion might be the result of special experiences gained while living in the house of Mrs. Delaport Green.
"If," Molly went on, evidently glad to relieve her mind on the subject, "you got the money to pay your unfortunate dressmaker, there would be some justice in that. But," she suddenly sat up and her eyes shot fire at Edmund, "to fuss at a bazaar to show your kindness of heart while you know you are not going to pay the woman who made the very gown you have on, is perfectly sickening."
"It is atrocious," said Grosse, who wanted to change the subject. But this was effected by the most unexpected apparition of Mr. Delaport Green, whom they had both supposed to be refreshing himself by the sea at Brighton.
Mr. Delaport Green was dressed in very light grey, with a white waistcoat. His figure was curious, as it extended in parts so far in front of the rest that it gave the impression that you must pa.s.s your eyes over a great deal of substance in the foreground before you could see the face. Then again, the nose was so predominant that it checked any attempt to realise the eyes and forehead, while the cheeks were baggy and the skin unwholesome.
Edmund Grosse had only seen him on two occasions when he dined at his house, and he had liked him at once. There was something markedly masculine about him; he knew life, and had made up his mind as to his own part in it without delusions and without whining. He would have preferred to have been slim and handsome, and to have known the ways of the social world from his youth, but there were plenty of other things to be interested in, and he was not averse to the power which follows on wealth. He was a self-made Englishman, with nothing of the Jew about him, either for good or evil. But no apparition could have been more surprising to the two as he came slowly over the gra.s.s to meet them.
Molly saw at once that Adela"s husband was exceedingly annoyed, probably exceedingly angry, and although she had always felt his capacity for being very angry, she had never seen him in that condition before.
"I came down in the motor to get a short talk on business with Miss Dexter," he explained, "but I am sorry to disturb a more amusing conversation."
Edmund, of course, after that left them alone, and walked off by himself.
Molly looked all her astonishment at Adela"s "Tim."
"Miss Dexter," he said very slowly, "I was given to understand when you came to us in the winter that you were a young lady wanting a home and some amus.e.m.e.nt in London. I thought it kindly in my wife to wish to have you with her, and, as she is young and a good deal alone" (Molly looked the other way at this a.s.sertion), "I thought it would be for the advantage of both. But I had no notion that there was any question of payment in the case, and I must now ask you to tell me exactly what you have paid to Mrs. Delaport Green since first you made her acquaintance."
Molly was not entirely astonished at discovering that Adela"s husband had known nothing whatever of Adela"s financial arrangements with herself. But she was so angry at this proof of what she had up to now only faintly suspected, that it was not very difficult to make her tell all that she knew of her share in Adela"s expenses, only that knowledge proved to be of a very vague kind. Molly had kept no accounts, and had the vaguest notion of what her bills included. One thing she intended to conceal (but Mr. Delaport Green managed to make her confide even that) was the fact that she had given 100 to his wife"s dressmaker. He made no comment of any sort, only firmly and quietly insisted on Molly giving him all the items she could. Then he got up and said--
"Good-bye for the present; I want to get back in time for lunch."
And he walked away, making one or two notes in a little book he held in his hand as to the cheque that Molly should find waiting for her next day.
Molly, left alone on the bench, did not at the first moment dwell on the thought of how far this talk with her host would affect her own plans.
She could only think of the man himself. She had been for many weeks in his house, and had never done more than "exchange the weather" with him, or occasionally suffer gladly the little jokes and puns to which he was addicted. She had written to Miss Carew that his att.i.tude towards Adela and herself was that of a busy man towards his nursery. Since that how little she had thought about him! And now she felt the strength in him, not weakened, but lit up with a kind of pathos. He might have been a true friend to any man or woman. He was really fond of Adela Delaport Green, and that position in itself was tragic enough. It was plain to Molly, although nothing had been breathed on the subject that morning, that Tim would not find it hard to forgive his Adela. Adela would pa.s.s almost scot-free from well-merited punishment; and yet her husband was strong enough to have punished effectively where he deemed it necessary.
Molly was puzzled because she was without a clue to the mystery. The fact was that Tim had no wish to punish effectively. As long as Adela pa.s.sed untouched by one sin, as long as he felt sure of one great virtue in her life, all such details as much gambling, much selfishness, absurd extravagance, could be easily forgiven. Molly herself would be fairly dealt with and set aside; the "paying guest" was an indignity that he would soon forget. He would have been entirely indifferent to the impression of regretful interest that he had made upon her.
That night Edmund Grosse was Molly"s confidant as to the second, and evidently final, rupture between herself and Mrs. Delaport Green that had taken place in the afternoon. He could not but be kind and sympathetic as to her difficulties. It was, no doubt, very blind of him not to see that she was too quickly convinced of the wisdom of his advice, far too anxious to act as seemed well in his opinion. It never dawned on his imagination for a moment that the most serious part of the loss of the end of the season to Molly was the loss of his society during that time.
They strolled in the moonlight between the cedars and under the great wall with its alternate "ebon and ivory" of darkest evergreen growths and ma.s.ses of white climbing roses, Molly"s white gown rustling a little in the stillness. And Molly discovered with joy that he was trying to set her mind against marriage with Edgar Tonmore. If he only knew how little danger there was of that! And under Edmund"s influence she decided to offer herself for a visit of two or three weeks to Mrs.
Carteret, in the old and much disliked home of her childhood. It would look right; it would give a certain dignity to her position after the breakdown of the Delaport Green alliance, and it was always a great mistake to break with natural connections. So far Edmund Grosse; and in Molly"s mind it ran something like this: "He wants me to stand well with the world, and I will do this, intolerable as it is, to please him. He likes to think that I have some nice relations, and so I must try to be friendly with Aunt Anne Carteret, though that is the hardest part. And he wants me to get away from Edgar Tonmore, and I would go away from so many more people if he wished it."
The evening pa.s.sed into night, and Edmund was walking alone under the wall, dreaming of Rose.
All this foolish gambling, quarrelsome, small world of men and women made such a foil to her image. Molly and her mother, the Delaport Greens, and many others were grouped in his mind as he purled the smoke disdainfully from his cigar. Something in Molly"s walk by his side just now had made him see again the old woman with her quick, alert movements in the garden at Florence; after all they were cut from the same piece, the old wicked woman and the slight, dark girl with the curious eyes.
Molly must not be trusted; she must be suspected all the more because of her attractions in the moments of dangerous gentleness. And with a certain simplicity Edmund looked again at the moon above him, all the more glorious because secret and dark things were moving stealthily under the trees in the lower world.
And Molly was kneeling on her low window-seat, looking out at the same moon in a mood of joy that was trans.m.u.ted half consciously into prayer by the alchemy of pure love.