Part 17 (2/2)

”Now, then, if I present a sufficiently unruffled surface, let us go back to Mrs. Ansell--for I confess that her mysterious reasons are not yet apparent to me.”

Mrs. Amherst looked deprecatingly at her son. ”Maria Ansell is devoted to you too, John----”

”Of course she is! It's her _role_ to be devoted to everybody--especially to her enemies.”

”Her enemies?”

”Oh, I didn't intend any personal application. But why does she want me to take Bessy abroad?”

”She and Mr. Langhope think that Bessy is not looking well.”

Amherst paused, and the frown showed itself for a moment. ”What do _you_ think, mother?”

”I hadn't noticed it myself: Bessy seems to me prettier than ever. But perhaps she has less colour--and she complains of not sleeping. Maria thinks she still frets over the baby.”

Amherst made an impatient gesture. ”Is Europe the only panacea?”

”You should consider, John, that Bessy is used to change and amus.e.m.e.nt.

I think you sometimes forget that other people haven't your faculty of absorbing themselves in a single interest. And Maria says that the new doctor at Clifton, whom they seem to think so clever, is very anxious that Bessy should go to Europe this summer.”

”No doubt; and so is every one else: I mean her father and old Tredegar--and your friend Mrs. Ansell not least.”

Mrs. Amherst lifted her bright black eyes to his. ”Well, then--if they all think she needs it----”

”Good heavens, if travel were what she needed!--Why, we've never stopped travelling since we married. We've been everywhere on the globe except at Hanaford--this is her second visit here in three years!” He rose and took a rapid turn across the deserted verandah. ”It's not because her health requires it--it's to get me away from Westmore, to prevent things being done there that ought to be done!” he broke out vehemently, halting again before his mother.

The aged pink faded from Mrs. Amherst's face, but her eyes retained their lively glitter. ”To prevent things being done? What a strange thing to say!”

”I shouldn't have said it if I hadn't seen you falling under Mrs.

Ansell's spell.”

His mother had a gesture which showed from whom he had inherited his impulsive movements. ”Really, my son--!” She folded her hands, and added after a pause of self-recovery: ”If you mean that I have ever attempted to interfere----”

”No, no: but when they pervert things so d.a.m.nably----”

”John!”

He dropped into his chair again, and pushed the hair from his forehead with a groan.

”Well, then--put it that they have as much right to their view as I have: I only want you to see what it is. Whenever I try to do anything at Westmore--to give a real start to the work that Bessy and I planned together--some pretext is found to stop it: to pack us off to the ends of the earth, to cry out against reducing her income, to encourage her in some new extravagance to which the work at the mills must be sacrificed!”

Mrs. Amherst, growing pale under this outbreak, a.s.sured herself by a nervous backward glance that their privacy was still uninvaded; then her eyes returned to her son's face.

”John--are you sure you're not sacrificing your wife to the mills?”

He grew pale in turn, and they looked at each other for a moment without speaking.

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