“Of course it is!” she agreed, a good deal amused. “I don’t scruple to say so either! But I have never believed it to be my duty to stay here on his account, you know. I remained for Aubrey’s sake—and pray don’t imagine that the least sacrifice was entailed, my dear sir! He and I are the best of good friends, and have kept house very comfortably together, I assure you.”

He regarded her with bleak approval, but said, in his dryest voice: “You will hardly do so now that Mrs. Scorrier has quartered herself upon you, however.”

“No, indeed we shan’t! I had already realized that the sooner I make other arrangements for us both the better it will be. I fancy Mrs. Scorrier has shown you her most conciliating face, so that you might find it impossible to believe how odious I find her!”

“My dear Venetia, you have no need to tell me, for I am well-acquainted with her sort! A very pushing, overbearing female, who wants both conduct and manner. Depend upon it; the unseemly haste of this marriage may be laid at her door! A very good match for her daughter she has contrived, upon my word! I am excessively displeased that Conway should have had no more sense than to shackle himself to such a dab of a girl, who has nothing to recommend her but a pretty face and an amiable temper. Her birth is no more than respectable, and as for fortune, I should doubt of her having above a thousand pounds settled upon her, and very likely less, for the Scorriers are not wealthy, and her father, besides, was a younger son.”

This circumstance seemed to increase his disgust, and for several minutes he was unable to dismiss it from his mind. But when he had delivered himself of sundry pungent observations, and moralised briefly on the evils of impetuosity and improvidence he returned to the object of his visit, and in a manner that showed him to have formed the fixed resolve of removing Venetia from Undershaw immediately. “I do not wish to put you to inconvenience, Venetia, but it would be very agreeable to me if you could be ready to go with me tomorrow morning.”

“But I could not! Even if— Dear sir, you must allow me time to think! There are so many considerations—Aubrey—Undershaw— Oh, sometimes I think I shall be obliged to remain here until Conway returns, for heaven only knows what that woman might not do if she were left in command here!”

“As to that, it will not be in her power to overset your arrangements, my dear. I do not doubt that she has every disposition to do so, and so I thought it prudent to inform her that since Lady Lanyon has neither the authority nor the experience to assume the government of her husband’s affairs, all such power will be left in Mytchett’s hands. Indeed, I have already spoken to Mytchett, and all that remains to be done is for you to put him in possession of the necessary information, and to give him whatever directions you think right. I ventured to tell him that I hoped to bring you to his place of business tomorrow, on our way to London. For Aubrey, I should have explained to you that my invitation was naturally meant for him as well as for you.”

She pressed a hand to her brow rather distractedly, for she really knew not what to say, or even what to do. To the objections she raised he returned calm answers that demolished them; and when she confided to him her scheme of setting up her own establishment he said, after a moment’s silence, that he would be happy to discuss future plans with her when she was living under his roof. He then told her kindly that he regretted to be obliged to hurry her so uncomfortably, but was persuaded that when she had considered the matter for a little while her good sense would enable her to perceive the wisdom of withdrawing from Undershaw, and under his protection.

“I shall leave you now,” he announced, rising to his feet. “I am, as you know, an indifferent traveller, and can never go above a short distance without bringing on my tic. Lady Lanyon will, I must hope, excuse me if I retire to my bedchamber until dinner-time. No, do not put yourself to the trouble of accompanying me, my dear niece! I know my way, and have already desired your excellent housekeeper to send up a hot brick when I ring my bell. A hot brick to the feet, you know, will frequently alleviate cases of severe tic.” She knew him well enough not to persist, and he went away, leaving her to try to collect her scattered wits. It was no easy task, and after a very few moments the only clear thought in her head was that before trying to reach a decision she must see Damerel. This put her in mind of his promise to visit her as near noon as might be, and made her look quickly at the clock. It wanted only a few minutes to one o’clock. She thought he might already be awaiting her in the library, and went there immediately. He was not there. She hesitated, and then, on a sudden resolve, left the house by the garden-door, and went swiftly back to the stables.

XV

Nidd, who had served Damerel for almost as many years as had Marston, accepted the charge of Venetia’s mare without betraying that he saw anything remarkable in the visit of an unattended lady to a bachelor’s establishment. It was otherwise with Imber, admitting her to the house with reluctance, and exhibiting by every means short of actual speech the utmost disapproval. He ushered her into one of the saloons, and left her there while he went off to inform Damerel of her arrival.

She remained standing by one of the windows, but it was several minutes before Damerel came to her. The saloon seemed unfriendly, with no fire burning in the hearth, and the furniture primly arranged. They had never sat in it when Aubrey was at the Priory, but always in the library, and it still bore the appearance of a room that was never used. Venetia supposed that Imber must have led her to it either to emphasize his disapproval, or because Damerel had not yet finished his business with his agent. It was cheerless, and rather dark; but perhaps that was because heavy clouds were gathering in the sky, and it had started to mizzle.

She had began to wonder whether she had missed Damerel, who might have set out for Undershaw by way of the road instead of taking the shorter way across country, when the door opened, and he came in, demanding: “Now, what in thunder has your Empress been doing to drive you from home, Admir’d Venetia?”

He spoke lightly, yet with a hint of roughness in his voice, as though her visit was an unwelcome interruption. She turned, trying to read his face, and said, with a faint smile: “Were you busy? You don’t sound as though you were glad to see me!”

“I’m not glad to see you,” he replied. “You shouldn’t be here, you know.”

“So Imber seemed to think—but I didn’t care for that.” She came slowly into the middle of the room, and paused by the table that stood there, drawing off her gloves. “I thought it best to come to you, rather than to wait for you to come to me. It might not be easy for us to be private, and I must consult you. Something quite unlooked-for has happened, and I need your advice, my dear friend. My uncle has come.”

“Your uncle?” he repeated.

“My Uncle Hendred—my uncle by marriage, I should say. Damerel, he wishes to take me to London, and at once!”

“I see,” he said, after a moment’s silence. “Well—thus ends a charming autumn idyll, eh?”

“Do you think that that is what I came to say to you?” she asked.

He glanced at her, his eyes a little narrowed. “Probably not. It is the truth, however. Unpleasant, I grant, but still the truth.”

She felt as though the blood in her veins was slowly turning to ice. He had turned abruptly away, and walked over to the window; her eyes followed him, but she did not speak. He said harshly: “Yes, it’s the end of an idyll. It has been a golden autumn, hasn’t it? In another week there won’t be a leaf left hanging to the trees, though. Your uncle timed his coming well. You don’t think so, do you, my dear? But you will think it, believe me.”

She still said nothing, because she could think of nothing it was possible to say. She found it difficult even to take in the sense of what Damerel, incredibly, had said, or to disentangle the wisps of thought that jostled and contradicted each other in her brain. It was like a bad dream, in which people one knew quite well behaved fantastically, and one was powerless to escape from some dreadful doom. She lifted one hand to rub her eyes, as though she had really been dreaming. In a voice that seemed to her to belong to nightmare, because it was so quiet, and in nightmares when one tried to scream one was never able to speak above a whisper, she said: “Why shall I think it?”

He shrugged. “I could tell you, but not convince you. You’ll find out for yourself—when you’re less green, my dear, and know a little more of the world than what you have read.”

“Will you think it?” she asked. A faint flush rose to her whitened cheeks; she added humbly: “I shouldn’t ask you that, perhaps, but I wish to understand, and I suppose I’m too green—unless things are explained to me.”

“I think it would have been better if we had never met,” he replied sombrely.

“For you, or for me?”

“Oh, for both of us! The end of the idyll was implicit in the beginning: I at least knew that, though you might not. And also that the more enchanted the idyll the greater must be the pain of its ending. That won’t endure. Hearts don’t really break, you know. No, of course you don’t, but accept it as a truth, for I do know!”

“They can be wounded,” she said simply.

“Many times—and be healed again, as I have proved!”

She knit her brows. “Why do you say that? It is as if you wished to hurt me, but that can’t be so. I don’t feel that it can be!”