She answered him over her shoulders.

"I do most emphatically." He looked quite dismayed, and the girl broke in hurriedly, "Of course it is very astonishing, I suppose; but call it a caprice, if you like, I have an objection to marry a very rich man. I have an objection," she said, with quivering lips, "to be chosen for a wife just as somebody would choose a carpet, or a piece of furniture."

"Good G.o.d!" said Haverford. "Do you suppose that I want to buy you?"

"I don't suppose anything," said Caroline, "except that I thank you very much for your offer; and I decline it."

He let her walk on, and stood looking after her bewildered and pained.

She had grown so closely into his thoughts of late, she had become so individualized with all his new schemes for the future, she was so necessary, so dear, so precious (especially since he had learned how he had misjudged her, and Mrs. Brenton had lost very little time in making him acquainted with this) that he could hardly realize that she had turned so deliberately away from him.

He made no effort to follow her, however; there had been something authoritative in her voice and in her manner--something that stung him almost reproachfully. But his chief sensation was a rueful realization of failure.

"I am a vain, clumsy fool!" he said to himself, with a vast amount of irritation.

And after he had walked about for some considerable time, and had pondered the situation carefully, this unflattering estimate of himself strengthened.

If he could have comfortably taken himself away from Yelverton he would have done so; but as he had proposed himself for this visit it would have been difficult to have found a tangible reason for ending it in so abrupt a fashion.

The quiet, comfortable influence of the house, and particularly the presence of the children, worked pleasantly on his troubled mood, however, and at dinner-time he sat chatting briskly away over his American experiences, and noting with some satisfaction (and a good deal more vexation) that the girl in the white gown on the opposite side of the table matched himself in ease of manner and flow of spirit.

"I find him wonderfully improved," said Mrs. Brenton, as she and Caroline sat having their coffee in the hall.

"Oh, he was always fairly good looking," said the girl, carelessly.

She had let Betty decorate her for dinner, and there was a large red flower tucked in among the ma.s.ses of her dark hair just behind one small ear. She had grown taller, but was just as slim as ever; although Mrs. Brenton invented all sorts of fattening dishes entirely for Caroline's consumption, she refused to grow fat.

"Oh, I don't mean his looks, I mean his manner! Don't you find him ever so much brighter and brisker? He seems quite happy too. I am glad of that!"

Caroline put down her coffee-cup. She heard the dining-room door open.

"I am just going to run upstairs to see if Betty has dropped off. She looked very wakeful."

Her white gown whisked out of sight as Mr. Brenton and his guest came out of the dining-room, and though they sat a long time chatting and smoking, Miss Graniger never came back.

"I am trying to divide her a little from this devotion to the children, but it is not very successful," Mrs. Brenton said to Rupert, "and yet she cannot remain with them all her life."

"I am afraid she is rather obstinate," Haverford remarked, a trifle grimly.

The next morning he left Yelverton early--so early that the children were only half dressed when he went.

Betty lamenting, recalled a score of promises unfulfilled, and wept bitterly; and Caroline, as she listened to the child, felt almost ashamed.

"Although," she argued with herself, "he need not have gone away if he had not wanted to go."

Mrs. Brenton at luncheon gave it as her opinion that the change she had remarked in Rupert Haverford denoted more than a surface alteration.

"I am convinced," she said, "he is going to marry an American. Isn't it too abominable? I am so disappointed."

"When I marry," observed Betty, "I'm going to keep hens, speckley yellow ones. You know the sort, Baby, same as the one you chooced out of Aunt Brenny's garden."

"Chased," corrected Caroline.

"Chased," said Betty, then, in a different tone, "How _red_ you are, Caroline, quite like as if you was boiled."

"Well," said Mr. Brenton in his quiet way, "you were saying the other day you wanted him to marry, you know."

"So I do," agreed Agnes Brenton, "but I did not suppose he would care about an American wife."

They discussed the probable union for some time.

It struck Caroline as so strange that both these people should regard it as natural and certain that he should marry, and not from a mere sense of duty, but from inclination, even from affection.

"Do they forget so easily?" she asked herself.

CHAPTER XXI

At Christmas-time Mrs. Cuthbert Baynhurst joined the Yelverton party unexpectedly. She wore her beautiful sables, and looked quite radiant when she arrived. As usual, she seemed to charge the atmosphere with excitement of a pleasant nature.

"It is _so_ nice to be here!" she declared. "You can't think how tired I am of foreign beds and cooking. Agnes, I hope you are going to give me beef and plum-pudding every day."

Mrs. Brenton received her beautiful guest warmly; nevertheless, it was quickly evident to Camilla that there was something on the older woman's mind.

"Don't hesitate to send me away if you don't want me," she said easily.

"I can easily go back to town, or to Lea Abbey, or--well, anywhere, you know."

"Of course I shan't turn you away," said Agnes Brenton. Then she added, colouring a little, "Only I must wire to Rupert; we expected him for Christmas."

Camilla laughed ever so prettily.

"Dear soul, why should you? We have met already several times. You see," she added, quite seriously, "when things went so horribly bad with Cuthbert and me two months ago, I was obliged to send and ask Rupert to come and help me. And he was _so_ kind. He arranged everything. You know, don't you, that Cuthbert and I have agreed to separate--at any rate, for a little while? Perhaps when he does not find life quite so easy he may alter. His temper, my dear Agnes, is something beyond description; and he is so lazy, and _so_ difficult!

And then there are the children. My duty is really to them first of all; and I have neglected them terribly. Rupert suggests I should go back to my own little house, and have a chaperone to live with me. I supposed that Caroline would be quite enough, but from something Rupert said, I fancied, perhaps, she had some new plans in her mind."

"I have heard nothing," said Mrs. Brenton.

She had listened to this speech with a confusion of feeling. Camilla's easy acceptance of a most difficult position was not, perhaps, so very extraordinary, but other people worked a little more slowly.

"I don't quite approve of the little house. Why not stay here?" Mrs.

Brenton added.

"My dear Agnes! Have I not already outraged your friendship? Do you realize that you have been burdened with my children over a year?"

"What is a year! Besides, you know perfectly well there has been no burden. Haven't I been clamouring to have the children with me for ages? It has given both d.i.c.k and me a new spell of life to have these little souls about us, and if you will only make up your mind to stay on indefinitely, it will be a real happiness."

"Thank you, darling," said Camilla; "it sounds delightful. I will talk it over with Rupert when he comes."