She glanced at him, but proceeded in her suavest tones, "Do let us make one great united attempt to get Mr. Ansell to Sawston."

"No."

"What a changeable friend you are! When we were engaged you were always talking about him."

"Would you finish your tea, and then we will buy the linoleum for the cubicles."

But she returned to the subject again, not only on that day but throughout the term. Could nothing be done for poor Mr. Ansell? It seemed that she could not rest until all that he had once held dear was humiliated. In this she strayed outside her nature: she was unpractical.

And those who stray outside their nature invite disaster. Rickie, goaded by her, wrote to his friend again. The letter was in all ways unlike his old self. Ansell did not answer it. But he did write to Mr. Jackson, with whom he was not acquainted.

"Dear Mr. Jackson,--

"I understand from Widdrington that you have a large house. I would like to tell you how convenient it would be for me to come and stop in it.

June suits me best.--

"Yours truly,

"Stewart Ansell"

To which Mr. Jackson replied that not only in June but during the whole year his house was at the disposal of Mr. Ansell and of any one who resembled him.

But Agnes continued her life, cheerfully beating time. She, too, knew that her marriage was a failure, and in her spare moments regretted it. She wished that her husband was handsomer, more successful, more dictatorial. But she would think, "No, no; one mustn't grumble. It can't be helped." Ansell was wrong in sup-posing she might ever leave Rickie.

Spiritual apathy prevented her. Nor would she ever be tempted by a jollier man. Here criticism would willingly alter its tone. For Agnes also has her tragedy. She belonged to the type--not necessarily an elevated one--that loves once and once only. Her love for Gerald had not been a n.o.ble pa.s.sion: no imagination transfigured it. But such as it was, it sprang to embrace him, and he carried it away with him when he died. Les amours gui suivrent sont moins involuntaires: by an effort of the will she had warmed herself for Rickie.

She is not conscious of her tragedy, and therefore only the G.o.ds need weep at it. But it is fair to remember that hitherto she moves as one from whom the inner life has been withdrawn.

XXV

"I am afraid," said Agnes, unfolding a letter that she had received in the morning, "that things go far from satisfactorily at Cadover."

The three were alone at supper. It was the June of Rickie's second year at Sawston.

"Indeed?" said Herbert, who took a friendly interest. "In what way?

"Do you remember us talking of Stephen--Stephen Wonham, who by an odd coincidence--"

"Yes. Who wrote last year to that miserable failure Varden. I do."

"It is about him."

"I did not like the tone of his letter."

Agnes had made her first move. She waited for her husband to reply to it. But he, though full of a painful curiosity, would not speak. She moved again.

"I don't think, Herbert, that Aunt Emily, much as I like her, is the kind of person to bring a young man up. At all events the results have been disastrous this time."

"What has happened?"

"A tangle of things." She lowered her voice. "Drink."

"Dear! Really! Was Mrs. Failing fond of him?"

"She used to be. She let him live at Cadover ever since he was a little boy. Naturally that cannot continue."

Rickie never spoke.

"And now he has taken to be violent and rude," she went on.

"In short, a beggar on horseback. Who is he? Has he got relatives?"

"She has always been both father and mother to him. Now it must all come to an end. I blame her--and she blames herself--for not being severe enough. He has grown up without fixed principles. He has always followed his inclinations, and one knows the result of that."

Herbert a.s.sented. "To me Mrs. Failing's course is perfectly plain. She has a certain responsibility. She must pay the youth's pa.s.sage to one of the colonies, start him handsomely in some business, and then break off all communications."

"How funny! It is exactly what she is going to do."

"I shall then consider that she has behaved in a thoroughly honourable manner." He held out his plate for gooseberries. "His letter to Varden was neither helpful nor sympathetic, and, if written at all, it ought to have been both. I am not in the least surprised to learn that he has turned out badly. When you write next, would you tell her how sorry I am?"

"Indeed I will. Two years ago, when she was already a little anxious, she did so wish you could undertake him.

"I could not alter a grown man." But in his heart he thought he could, and smiled at his sister amiably. "Terrible, isn't it?" he remarked to Rickie. Rickie, who was trying not to mind anything, a.s.sented. And an onlooker would have supposed them a dispa.s.sionate trio, who were sorry both for Mrs. Failing and for the beggar who would bestride her horses'

backs no longer. A new topic was introduced by the arrival of the evening post.

Herbert took up all the letters, as he often did.

"Jackson?" he exclaimed. "What does the fellow want?" He read, and his tone was mollified, "'Dear Mr. Pembroke,--Could you, Mrs. Elliot, and Mr. Elliot come to supper with us on Sat.u.r.day next? I should not merely be pleased, I should be grateful. My wife is writing formally to Mrs.

Elliot'--(Here, Agnes, take your letter),--but I venture to write as well, and to add my more uncouth entreaties.'--An olive-branch. It is time! But (ridiculous person!) does he think that we can leave the House deserted and all go out pleasuring in term time?--Rickie, a letter for you."

"Mine's the formal invitation," said Agnes. "How very odd! Mr. Ansell will be there. Surely we asked him here! Did you know he knew the Jacksons?"

"This makes refusal very difficult," said Herbert, who was anxious to accept. "At all events, Rickie ought to go."

"I do not want to go," said Rickie, slowly opening his own letter. "As Agnes says, Ansell has refused to come to us. I cannot put myself out for him."

"Who's yours from?" she demanded.

"Mrs. Silt," replied Herbert, who had seen the handwriting. "I trust she does not want to pay us a visit this term, with the examinations impending and all the machinery at full pressure. Though, Rickie, you will have to accept the Jacksons' invitation."

"I cannot possibly go. I have been too rude; with Widdrington we always meet here. I'll stop with the boys--" His voice caught suddenly. He had opened Mrs. Silt's letter.

"The Silts are not ill, I hope?"

"No. But, I say,"--he looked at his wife,--"I do think this is going too far. Really, Agnes."

"What has happened?"