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Page 71
"Last week, Mr. Gillingham. I spoke just in time."
"Ah!" said Antony, under his breath. He had been waiting for it.
He would have liked now to have gone away, so that he might have
thought over the new situation by himself; or, perhaps
preferably, to have changed partners for a little while with
Bill. Miss Norbury would hardly be ready to confide in a
stranger with the readiness of a mother, but he might have learnt
something by listening to her. For which of them had she the
greater feeling, Cayley or Mark? Was she really prepared to
marry Mark? Did she love him or the other--or neither? Mrs.
Norbury was only a trustworthy witness in regard to her own
actions and thoughts; he had learnt all that was necessary of
those, and only the daughter now had anything left to tell him.
But Mrs. Norbury was still talking.
"Girls are so foolish, Mr. Gillingham," she was saying. "It is
fortunate that they have mothers to guide them. It was so
obvious to me from the beginning that dear Mr. Ablett was just
the husband for my little girl. You never knew him?"
Antony said again that he had not seen Mr. Ablett.
"Such a gentleman. So nice-looking, in his artistic way. A
regular Velasquez--I should say Van Dyck. Angela would have it
that she could never marry a man with a beard. As if that
mattered, when--" She broke off, and Antony finished her sentence
for her.
"The Red House is certainly charming," he said.
"Charming. Quite charming. And it is not as if Mr. Ablett's
appearance were in any way undistinguished. Quite the contrary.
I'm sure you agree with me?"
Antony said that he had never had the pleasure of seeing Mr.
Ablett.
"Yes. And quite the centre of the literary and artistic world.
So desirable in every way."
She gave a deep sigh, and communed with herself for a little.
Antony was, about to snatch the opportunity of leaving, when Mrs.
Norbury began again.
"And then there's this scapegrace brother of his. He was
perfectly frank with me, Mr. Gillingham. He would be. He told
me of this brother, and I told him that I was quite certain it
would make no difference to my daughter's feelings for him ....
After all, the brother was in Australia."
"When was this? Yesterday?" Antony felt that, if Mark had only
mentioned it after his brother's announcement of a personal call
at the Red House, this perfect frankness had a good deal of
wisdom behind it.
"It couldn't have been yesterday, Mr. Gillingham. Yesterday--"
she shuddered, and shook her head.
"I thought perhaps he had been down here in the morning."
"Oh, no! There is such a thing, Mr. Gillingham, as being too
devoted a lover. Not in the morning, no. We both agreed that
dear Angela--Oh, no. No; the day before yesterday, when he
happened to drop in about tea-time."
It occurred to Antony that Mrs. Norbury had come a long way from
her opening statement that Mark and Miss Norbury were practically
engaged. She was now admitting that dear Angela was not to be
rushed, that dear Angela had, indeed, no heart for the match at
all.
"The day before yesterday. As it happened, dear Angela was out.
Not that it mattered. He was driving to Middleston. He hardly
had time for a cup of tea, so that even if she had been in--"
Antony nodded absently. This was something new. Why did Mark go
to Middleston the day before yesterday? But, after all, why
shouldn't he? A hundred reasons unconnected with the death of
Robert might have taken him there.
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