Part 50

Cora’s consideration of it went even further. “Has he changed?”

It went--and the effect was odd--a little too far for her companion, in whom, just discernibly, it had touched the spring of impatience. “My dear child, how in the world should I know?”

But Cora knew exactly how anyone would know. “He hasn’t seemed to care enough for the house. Does he care?”

Mrs. Gracedew moved away, passed over to the fireplace, and stood a moment looking at the old armorial fire-back she had praised to its master--yet not, it must be added, as if she particularly saw it. Then as she faced about: “You had better ask him!”

They stood thus confronted, with the fine old interval between them, and the girl’s air was for a moment that of considering such a course. “If he does care,” she said at last, “he’ll propose.”

Mrs. Gracedew, from where she stood in relation to the stairs, saw at this point the subject of their colloquy restored to view: Captain Yule was just upon them--he had turned the upper landing. The sight of him forced from her in a flash an ejaculation that she tried, however, to keep private--“He does care!” She passed swiftly, before he reached them, back to the girl and, in a quick whisper, but with full conviction, let her have it: “He’ll propose!”

Her movement had made her friend aware, and the young man, hurrying down, was now in the hall. Cora, at his hurry, looked dismay--“Then I fly!” With which, casting about for a direction, she reached the door to the court.

Captain Yule, however, at this result of his return, expressed instant regret. “I drive Miss Prodmore away!”

Mrs. Gracedew, more quickly still, eased off the situation. “It’s all right!” She had embraced both parties with a smile, but it was most liberal now for Cora. “Do you mind, one moment?”--it conveyed, unmistakeably, a full intelligence and a fine explanation. “I’ve something to say to Captain Yule.”

Cora stood in the doorway, robust against the garden-light, and looking from one to the other. “Yes--but I’ve also something more to say to you.”

“Do you mean now?” the young man asked.

It was the first time he had spoken to her, and her hesitation might have signified a maidenly flutter. “No--but before she goes.”

Mrs. Gracedew took it amiably up. “Come back, then; I’m not going.” And there was both dismissal and encouragement in the way that, as on the occasion of the girl’s former retreat, she blew her a familiar kiss. Cora, still with her face to them, waited just enough to show that she took it without a response; then, with a quick turn, dashed out, while Mrs. Gracedew looked at their visitor in vague surprise. “What’s the matter with her?”

She had turned away as soon as she spoke, moving as far from him as she had moved a few moments before from Cora. The silence that, as he watched her, followed her question would have been seen by a spectator to be a hard one for either to break. “I don’t know what’s the matter with her,” he said at last; “I’m afraid I only know what’s the matter with me. It will doubtless give you pleasure to learn,” he added, “that I’ve closed with Mr. Prodmore.”

It was a speech that, strangely enough, seemed but half to dissipate the hush. Mrs. Gracedew reached the great chimney again; again she stood there with her face averted; and when she finally replied it was in other words than he might have supposed himself naturally to inspire. “I thought you said he gave you time.”

“Yes; but you produced just now so deep an effect on me that I thought best not to take any.” He appeared to listen to a sound from above, and, for a moment, under this impulse, his eyes travelled about almost as if he were alone. Then he completed, with deliberation, his statement. “I came upon him right there, and I burnt my ships.”

Mrs. Gracedew continued not to meet his face. “You do what he requires?”

The young man was markedly, consciously caught. “I do what he requires. I felt the tremendous force of all you said to me.”

She turned round on him now, as if perhaps with a slight sharpness, the face of responsibility--even, it might be, of reproach. “So did I--or I shouldn’t have said it!”

It was doubtless this element of justification in her tone that drew from him a laugh a tiny trifle dry. “You’re perhaps not aware that you wield an influence of which it’s not too much to say----”

But he paused at the important point so long that she took him up. “To say what?”

“Well, that it’s practically irresistible!”

It sounded a little as if it had not been what he first meant; but it made her, none the less, still graver and just faintly ironical. “You’ve given me the most flattering proof of my influence that I’ve ever enjoyed in my life!”

He fixed her very hard, now distinctly so mystified that he could only wonder what different recall of her previous attitude she would have looked for. “This was inevitable, dear madam, from the moment you had converted me--and in about three minutes too!--into the absolute echo of your raptures.”

Nothing was, indeed, more extraordinary than her air of having suddenly forgotten them. “My ‘raptures’?”

He was amazed. “Why, about my home.”

He might look her through and through, but she had no eyes for himself, though she had now quitted the fireplace and finally recognised this allusion. “Oh, yes--your home!” From where had she come back to it? “It’s a nice tattered, battered old thing.” This account of it was the more shrunken that her observation, even as she spoke, freshly went the rounds. “It has defects of course”--with this renewed attention they appeared suddenly to strike her. They had popped out, conspicuous, and for a little it might have been a matter of conscience. However, her conscience dropped. “But it’s no use mentioning them now!”

They had half an hour earlier been vividly present to himself, but to see her thus oddly pulled up by them was to forget on the spot the ground he had taken. “I’m particularly sorry,” he returned with some spirit, “that you didn’t mention them before!”