Part 29 (1/2)
”That's nothing to this. d.i.c.k was never really serious, and Alicia's always serious, if she thinks about a thing at all.”
”Well, well, of course it must be stopped. What are you going to do?”
”She must be told,” said Lady Eynesford.
”I won't tell her.”
”Then I must.”
”I wonder if you're not wrong after all.”
”Oh, watch them!” retorted Lady Eynesford, and, leaving her husband, she sought Alicia and invited her to come and have a talk in the verandah.
Alicia, when thus summoned, was sitting with Eleanor Scaife, and they were both watching Captain Heseltine's fox terrier jump over a walking-stick under his master's tuition. It was a suitable enough amus.e.m.e.nt for a hot day; and it was engrossing enough to prevent Eleanor raising her eyes at the sound of Lady Eynesford's voice. In fact, she was not over and above anxious to meet that lady's glance. Eleanor had, in the light of recent events, grown rather doubtful of the wisdom of her wonderful discretion, and Lady Eynesford had intimated, with her usual clearness of statement, a decided opinion that not Eleanor, but she herself was the proper person to judge what should and should not be told to Alicia. She had enforced her moral by hinting at very distressing consequences which might follow on Eleanor's unfortunate reticence.
”I sometimes think,” Eleanor remarked to Heseltine, when Alicia had left them, ”that perfect openness and candour are always best.”
Captain Heseltine lowered the walking-stick and looked at her with an air of expectancy.
”It saves so much misunderstanding, if you tell everybody everything right out,” continued Eleanor.
”For my part,” returned Heseltine, with an earnestness which he rarely displayed, ”I differ utterly. I've never in my life told anybody anything without being sorry I hadn't held my tongue.”
”Oh, you mean your private affairs.”
”Well, and you? Oh, I see. You only mean other people's. Agreed, agreed!
Perfect openness and candour about them by all means!”
”I am quite serious. One never knows how much harm may be done by concealing them.”
”Got a murder on your conscience?”
”Oh, not exactly,” sighed Eleanor.
”You're like that chap Kilshaw. He's always talking as if he had something awful up his sleeve.”
”Perhaps he has.”
As Eleanor said this, she jumped up and ran to meet Alicia, whom she saw coming towards her. Lady Eynesford had wasted no time over her task.
The Captain, being left alone, did the appropriate thing. He soliloquised.
”She'd have told me in another half-minute,” said he, with a chuckle.
”It was choking her. Yet she's a sensible one as they go.”
Whom or what cla.s.s he meant by ”they” it is merciful to his ignorant prejudices to leave unrevealed.
CHAPTER XVIII.