Afterwards, in conversation with her husband, she was a little doubtful whether she had not gone rather too far. "Of course I have known her for a good many years," she said. "And I've always liked her too. But the fact is, I like her better when I'm with her than when I'm away from her; I don't know why. She's got a sort of way with her."
"She's a very charming woman," said Lord Crowborough. "I've nothing against her at all. I don't know why you shouldn't like her when you're away from her. Anyhow, I'm glad you made a bit of a fuss with her. And evidently she responded, from what you say. No doubt she wants this trouble ended. So do we. Poor old Edmund! I've forgiven him for what he said, though 'pon my word it was outrageous."
"Well, I said I never would forget it," said Lady Crowborough. "And really, John, when I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure you're right in making it so plain that we are anxious to see Colonel Eldridge back on the old terms with us. Perhaps he'll even refuse my invitation, and we shall have given him a handle. If he does come, of course I shall be polite to him, but I've no intention of treating him in the same way as I have Cynthia."
"Well, I don't suppose you'll kiss him; but I'm quite sure you won't treat him stiffly, my dear. You may begin like that, but you're incapable of keeping it up."
Lady Crowborough sighed. "I am like that," she admitted. "I get carried away."
When the party from Pershore Castle had driven off, Lady Eldridge took her sister-in-law into the house, leaving the young people still at their games, and Sir William, who had changed into gleaming white, playing with them. Lady Eldridge was a handsome dark-eyed, dark-haired woman, very well preserved for her years, which were about the same as those of Mrs. Eldridge, but without the look of fragile youth that was the note of that lady's appearance in her most favourable moments. She had an agreeable, decisive manner of speech, and a straightforward, honest look. The two of them had been friends at school, and it was at Hayslope Hall that Lady Eldridge had first met her husband, at that time a young barrister, not entirely briefless, or he would not have been in a position to marry, but with nothing in his prospects to indicate the opulence that he now so much enjoyed.
Lady Eldridge's special room was the most recent addition to the house, pleasing in its proportions and decoration, and beautifully but quietly furnished. Mrs. Eldridge sank into a deep cushioned chair, and said with a plaintive sigh: "I wish I could afford a room like this. You've made such a perfect success of it, Eleanor. I don't think it could possibly be nicer."
"It's very sweet of you to say so, my dear. But I don't think you have any cause to grumble, with all the beautiful old things you have in your room. Of course these are mostly old, too, but then they have all been bought. I might easily have gone wrong, you know. You don't think it looks like just money, do you?"
"Oh, no! Oh, no!" Mrs. Eldridge held up hands of expostulation. Then she dropped the subject. "The Crowboroughs want to bury the hatchet," she said. "I'm glad enough, I do hate rows, especially between old friends. But my poor old Edmund had a lot to put up with. I suppose Lord Crowborough means well. It's what everybody says of him. It's what they generally do say of thoroughly tiresome people, isn't it?—especially if they've got titles. Of course he is tiresome, and so is she, but both of them have their uses, so one puts up with it."
Lady Eldridge laughed. Her laugh was agreeable to listen to, and always meant that she was amused. "What uses?" she asked.
"Well, there's the Castle to go to, for one thing."
"You used to bewail your lot in being expected to go so much to the Castle."
"My dear, I've grown wiser, as well as a good deal poorer. Nobody can deny that the Castle is desperately dull, entirely owing to the people who inhabit it; for it's a fine enough house. But they do occasionally have people to stay, though I don't know whether you've noticed that the same people seldom come twice. It's a house to go to. To that I've come—that I'm thankful for an invitation to dine at Pershore Castle. I'm not sure that I didn't even angle for it. I certainly intimated that if Edmund didn't think it good enough, the invitation was on no account to be withdrawn from Pam and me. I made eyes at her, and she gave in at once. She thinks I'm a very sweet woman, until she goes away from me, and then she's not so sure about it. Am I a sweet woman, Eleanor, or a bit of a cat? I'm never quite certain."
"You were a very sweet child," said Lady Eldridge, whose face had become rather serious during this speech. "I always loved you and always shall. And as long as you say everything you think to me. … "
"Oh, my dear, I shall always do that. You're one of the few comforts left to me in life. I can't grumble to Edmund, or the children. Besides, you're so generous. I should never have had my little bit of London this year but for you. How I should have missed it! And how I enjoyed it! There is no doubt that one does enjoy pleasures that come to one unexpectedly more than those that one takes as a matter of course."
"Well, Cynthia, you know that until you have a house of your own again in London, ours is there for you to come to whenever you like. And for the girls too. It doesn't want saying, does it, dear? We've always been very close together. There was a time when I owed almost all my pleasures in life to you, and I don't forget how generous you were. We've been fortunate, Bill and I, and at a time when so many people have had to alter their way of living. It's nice to think that our good fortune is of use not only to ourselves; that those we love can share it with us. I suppose there aren't many people who are so close together as you and Edmund and Bill and I. And our children too. I can't imagine anything that would come between us."
"No," said Mrs. Eldridge. "I can't either. It's a great comfort to have you here. I don't know what we should do without you."
CHAPTER III
NORMAN
Norman Eldridge and his cousin Pamela detached themselves from the tennis players and strolled off through the bare blaze of the upper garden with its elaborate architecture of walls and steps and pavings and pergolas, and its bright, restless plantings, into the shade of the woods.
They were close friends, these two, and had been so ever since Norman as a boy of eight had fallen in love with Pamela as a baby of two. It's a nice sort of boy who loves children, and Norman had been a very attractive small boy, high-spirited, energetic and mischievous, but never a source of anxiety with his mischievousness, as his cousin Hugo had been. Hugo was a year older than Norman, and always eager to make his seniority felt. In those early days Norman had paid visits from the little house in Hampstead where his parents then lived, to Hayslope Hall, and greatly enjoyed the ample life of the country house, with ponies to ride, the river to fish, later on rabbits and birds to shoot, and all the blissful freedom of the woods and fields. But Hugo, his constant companion in holiday activities, had spoilt a good deal of the pleasure of them. At first Norman had given way and been bullied. It seemed as if Hugo were unable to enjoy himself without being unpleasant. He was bigger and stronger than Norman, and had all the advantage of being on his own ground. In earlier visits, when both children had been under the eye of nurses and governess, there had been frequent quarrels, but Hugo had been forced more or less to behave himself. But during that month of Christmas holidays, when Hugo had come home from his first term at school, he had turned Norman's excitement and pleasure into a dragging unhappiness, which increased so much that he came to count the days before the end of his visit as eagerly as he had counted those which had brought him to it.
Hugo,