Chapter 13

The next evening Bruce came in, holding himself very straight, with a slightly military manner. When he saw his wife he just stopped himself from saluting.

'That's a man!' he exclaimed. 'That's a splendid fellow.'

Edith didn't answer.

'You don't appreciate him. In my opinion Aylmer Ross is a hero.'

'I hope he's better?'

'Better! He would say so, anyhow. Ah, he's a wonderful chap!' Bruce hummed Tipperary below his breath.

Edith was surprised to find herself suffering no less mental discomfort and irritation while Bruce talked about Aylmer and praised him than she used to feel years ago. It seemed as if three years had passed and altered nothing. She answered coldly. Bruce became more enthusiastic. He declared that she didn't know how to value such a fine character. 'Women,' he repeated, 'don't know a hero when they see one.'

Evidently if Bruce had had his way Aylmer would have been covered with DSO's and VC's; nothing was good enough for him.

On the other hand, if Edith had praised Aylmer, Bruce would have been the first to _debiner_ his actions, undervalue his gifts, and crab him generally.

Edith was not one of those women, far more common than is supposed, who consider themselves aggrieved and injured when a discarded lover consoles himself with someone else. Nor was she one of the numerous people who will not throw away what they no longer want for fear someone else will pick it up. She had such a strong sympathy for Dulcie Clay that she had said to herself several times she would like to see her perfectly happy. Edith was convinced that the nurse adored her patient, but she was not at all sure that he returned the admiration. Edith herself had only seen him alone once, and on that occasion they had said hardly anything to each other. He had been constrained and she had been embarrassed. The day that Arthur Coniston was there and they talked of pictures, Aylmer had given her, by a look, to understand that he would like to see her again alone, and she knew perfectly well, even without that, that he was longing for another _tete-a-tete_.

However, the next day Edith went with Madame Frabelle.

This was a strangely unsatisfactory visit. Edith knew his looks and every tone of his voice so well that she could see that Aylmer, unlike everybody else, was not in the least charmed with Madame Frabelle. She bored him; he saw nothing in her.

Madame Frabelle was still more disappointed. She had been told he was brilliant; he said nothing put commonplaces. He was supposed to be witty; he answered everything she said literally. He was said to be a man of encyclopaedic information; but when Madame Frabelle questioned him on such subjects his answers were dry and short; and when she tried to draw him out about the war, he changed the subject in a manner that was not very far from being positively rude.

Leaving them for a moment, Edith went to talk to Dulcie.

'How do you think he's getting on?' she said.

'He's getting well; gradually. He seems a little nervous the last day or so.'

'Do you think he's been seeing too many people?'

'He hasn't seen more than the doctor has allowed. But, do you know, Mrs. Ottley, I think it depends a great deal who the people are.'

She waited a moment and then went on in a low voice:

'You do him more good than anyone. You see, he's known you so long,' she added gently, 'and so intimately. It's no strain--I mean he hasn't got to make conversation.'

'Yes, I see,' said Edith.

'Mr. Ross hasn't any near relations--no mother or sister. You seem to take their place--if you understand what I mean.'

Edith thought it charmingly tactful of her to put it like that.

'I'm sure _you_ take their place,' Edith said.

Dulcie looked down.

'Oh, of course, he hasn't to make any effort with me. But then _I_ don't amuse him, and he wants amusement, and change. It's a great bore for a man like that--so active mentally, and in every way--to have to lie perfectly still, especially when he has no companion but me. I'm rather dull in some ways. Besides, I don't know anything about the subjects he's interested in.'

'Don't talk nonsense,' said Edith, smiling. 'I should imagine that just to look at you would be sufficient.'

'Oh, Mrs. Ottley! How can you?'

She turned away as if rather pained than pleased at the compliment.

'I haven't very high spirits,' she said. 'I'm not sure that I don't sometimes depress him.'

'On the contrary; I'm sure he wouldn't like a breezy, restless person bouncing about the room and roaring with laughter,' Edith said.

She smiled. 'Perhaps not. But there might be something between. He will be able to go for a drive in a week or two. I wondered whether, perhaps, you could take him out?'

'Oh yes; I dare say that could be arranged.'

'I have to go out all tomorrow afternoon. I wondered whether you would come and sit with him, Mrs. Ottley?'

'Certainly I will, if you like.'

'Oh, please do! I know he's worrying much more about his son than anybody thinks. You see, the boy's really very young, and I'm not sure he's strong.'

'I suppose neither of them told the truth about their age,' said Edith. 'It reminds one of the joke in _Punch_: "Where do you expect to go if you tell lies? To the front."'

Miss Clay gave a little laugh. Then she started. A bell was heard ringing rather loudly.

'I'll tell him you're coming tomorrow, then,' she said.

They returned to Aylmer's room.

He was looking a little sulky. He said as Edith came in:

'I thought you'd gone without saying good-bye. What on earth were you doing?'

'Only talking to Miss Clay,' said Edith, sitting down by him. 'How sweet she is.'

'Charming,' said Madame Frabelle. 'Wonderfully pretty, too.'

'She's a good nurse,' said Aylmer briefly. 'She's been awfully good to me. But I do hope I shan't need her much longer.' He spoke with unnecessary fervour.

'Oh, Mr Ross!' exclaimed Madame Frabelle. 'I'm sure if I were a young man I should be very sorry when she had to leave me!'

'Possibly. However, you're not a young man. Neither am I.'

There was a moment's silence. This was really an exceptional thing when Madame Frabelle was present. Edith could not recall one occasion when Eglantine had had nothing to say. Aylmer must have been excessively snubbing. Extraordinary I Wonder of wonders! He had actually silenced Madame Frabelle!

All Aylmer's natural politeness and amiability returned when they rose to take their leave. He suddenly became cordial, cheery and charming. Evidently he was so delighted the visitor was going that it quite raised his spirits. When they left he gave Edith a little reproachful look. He did not ask her to come again. He was afraid she would bring Madame Frabelle.

'Well, Edith, I thoroughly understand your husband's hero-worship for that man,' said Madame Frabelle (meaning she thoroughly misunderstood it). 'I've been studying his character all this afternoon.'

'Do tell me what you think of him!'

'Edith, I'm sorry to say it, but it's a hard, cold, cruel nature.'

'Is it really?'

'Mr Aylmer Ross doesn't know what it is to feel emotion, sentiment, or tenderness. Principle he has, perhaps, and no doubt he thinks he has great self-control, but that's only because he's absolutely incapable of passion of any kind.'

Edith smiled.

'I see you're amused at my being right again. It is an odd thing about me, I must own. I never make a mistake,' said Madame Frabelle complacently.

As they walked home, she continued to discourse eloquently on the subject of Aylmer. She explained him almost entirely away.

There was nothing Madame Frabelle fancied herself more on than physiognomy. She pointed out to Edith how the brow showed a narrow mind, the mouth bitterness. (How extraordinarily bored Aylmer must have been to give that impression of all others, thought her listener.) And the eyes, particularly, gave away his chief characteristic, the thing that one missed most in his personality.

'And what is that?'

'Can't you see?'

'No, I don't think I can.'

'He has no sense of humour!' said Madame Frabelle triumphantly.

After a few moment's pause, Edith said:

'What do you think of Miss Clay?'

'She's very pretty--extremely pretty. But I don't quite like to say what I think of her. I'd rather not. Don't ask me. It doesn't concern me.'

'As bad as that? Oh, do tell me. You're so interesting about character, Eglantine.'

'Dear Edith, how kind of you. Well, she's very, very clever, of course. Most intellectual. A remarkable brain, I should say. But she's deep and scheming; it's a sly, treacherous face.'

'Really, I can't see that.'

Madame Frabelle put her hand on Edith's shoulder. They had just reached the house.

'Ah, you don't know so much of life as I do, my dear.'

'I should have said she is certainly not at all above the average in cleverness, and I think her particularly simple and frank.'

'Ah, but that's all put on. You'll see I'm right some day. However, it doesn't matter. No doubt she's a very good nurse.'

'Don't abuse her to Bruce,' said Edith, as they went in.

'Certainly not. But why do you mind?'

'I don't know; I suppose I like her.'

Madame Frabelle laughed. 'How strange you are!'

She lowered her voice as they walked upstairs, and said:

'To tell the real truth, she gave me a shiver down the spine. I believe that girl capable of anything. That dark skin with those pale blue eyes! I strongly suspect she has a touch of the tarbrush.'

'My dear! Nonsense. You can't have looked at her fine little features and her white hands.'

'Why is she so dark?'

'There may have been Italian or Spanish blood in her family,' said Edith, laughing. 'It's not a symptom of crime.'

'There may, indeed,' replied Madame Frabelle in a tone of deep meaning, as they reached the door of her room. 'But, mark my words, Edith, that's a dangerous woman!'

* * * * *

An event had occurred in the Ottley household during their absence. Archie had brought home a dog and implored his mother to let him keep it.

'What sort of dog is it?' asked Edith.

'Come and look at it. It isn't any particular _sort_. It's just a dog.'

'But, my dear boy, you're going to school the day after tomorrow, and you can't take it with you.'

'I know; but I'll teach Dilly to look after it.'

It was a queer, rough, untidy-looking creature; it seemed harmless enough; a sort of Dobbin in _Vanity Fair_ in the canine world.

'It's an inconsistent dog. Its face is like a terrier's, and its tail like a sort of spaniel,' said Archie. 'But I think it might be trained to a bloodhound.'

'You do, do you? What use would a bloodhound be to Dilly?'

'Well, you never know. It might be very useful.'

'I'm afraid there's not room in the house for it.'

'Oh, Mother!' both the children cried together. 'We _must_ keep it!'

'Was it lost?' she asked.

Archie frowned at Dilly, who was beginning to say, 'Not exactly.'

'Tell me how you got it.'

'It was just walking along, and I took its chain. The chain was dragging on the ground.'

'You stole it,' said Dilly.

Archie flew at her, but Edith kept him back.

'Stole it! I didn't! Its master had walked on and evidently didn't care a bit about it, poor thing. That's not stealing.'

'If Master Archie wants to keep a lot of dogs, he had better take them with him to school,' said the nurse. 'I don't want nothing to do with no dogs, not in this nursery.'

'There's only one thing to be done, Archie; you must take care of it for the next day or two, and I shall advertise in the paper for its master.'

'Oh, mother!'

'Don't you see it isn't even honest to keep it?'

Archie was bitterly disappointed, but consoled at the idea of seeing the advertisement in the paper.

'How can we advertise it? We don't know what name it answers to.'

'It would certainly be difficult to describe,' said Edith.

They had tried every name they had ever heard of, and Dilly declared it had answered to them all, if answering meant jumping rather wildly round them and barking as if in the very highest spirits, it certainly had.

'It'll be fun to see my name in the paper,' said Archie thoughtfully.

'Indeed you won't see your name in the paper.'

'Well, I found it,' said Archie rather sulkily.

'Yes; but you had no right to find it, and still less to bring it home. I don't know what your father will say.'

Bruce at once said that it must be taken to Scotland Yard. Dilly cried bitterly, and said she wanted it to eat out of her hand, and save her life in a snowstorm.

'It's not a St Bernard, you utter little fool,' said her brother.

'Well, it might save me from drowning,' said Dilly.

She had once seen a picture, which she longed to realise, of a dog swimming, holding a child in its mouth. She thought it ought to be called Faithful or Rover.

All these romantic visions had to be given up. Madame Frabelle said the only thing to do was to take it at once to the Battersea Dogs' Home, where it would be 'happy with companions of its own age'. Immediately after dinner her suggestion was carried out, to the great relief of most of the household. The nurse said when it had gone that she had 'known all along it was mad, but didn't like to say so.'

'But it took such a fancy to me,' said Archie.

'Perhaps that was why,' said Dilly.

* * * * *

The children were separated by force.