The day before yesterday! Was it possible that, no longer ago, life had seemed a sufficiently simple business for a sane man to hazard such assurances?
“Anna,” he questioned her abruptly, “why are you so anxious for this marriage?”
She stopped short to face him. “Why? But surely I’ve explained to you–or rather I’ve hardly had to, you seemed so in sympathy with my reasons!”
“I didn’t know, then, who it was that Owen wanted to marry.”
The words were out with a spring and he felt a clearer air in his brain. But her logic hemmed him in.
“You knew yesterday; and you assured me then that you hadn’t a word to say—-”
“Against Miss Viner?” The name, once uttered, sounded on and on in his ears. “Of course not. But that doesn’t necessarily imply that I think her a good match for Owen.”
Anna made no immediate answer. When she spoke it was to question: “Why don’t you think her a good match for Owen?”
“Well–Madame de Chantelle’s reasons seem to me not quite as negligible as you think.”
“You mean the fact that she’s been Mrs. Murrett’s secretary, and that the people who employed her before were called Hoke? For, as far as Owen and I can make out, these are the gravest charges against her.”
“Still, one can understand that the match is not what Madame de Chantelle had dreamed of.”
“Oh, perfectly–if that’s all you mean.” The lodge was in sight, and she hastened her step. He strode on beside her in silence, but at the gate she checked him with the question: “Is it really all you mean?”
“Of course,” he heard himself declare.
“Oh, then I think I shall convince you–even if I can’t, like Madame de Chantelle, summon all the Everards to my aid!” She lifted to him the look of happy laughter that sometimes brushed her with a gleam of spring.
Darrow watched her hasten along the path between the dripping chrysanthemums and enter the lodge. After she had gone in he paced up and down outside in the drizzle, waiting to learn if she had any message to send back to the house; and after the lapse of a few minutes she came out again.
The child, she said, was badly, though not dangerously, hurt, and the village doctor, who was already on hand, had asked that the surgeon, already summoned from Francheuil, should be told to bring with him certain needful appliances. Owen had started by motor to fetch the surgeon, but there was still time to communicate with the latter by telephone. The doctor furthermore begged for an immediate provision of such bandages and disinfectants as Givre itself could furnish, and Anna bade Darrow address himself to Miss Viner, who would know where to find the necessary things, and would direct one of the servants to bicycle with them to the lodge.
Darrow, as he hurried off on this errand, had at once perceived the opportunity it offered of a word with Sophy Viner. What that word was to be he did not know; but now, if ever, was the moment to make it urgent and conclusive. It was unlikely that he would again have such a chance of unobserved talk with her.
He had supposed he should find her with her pupil in the school-room; but he learned from a servant that Effie had gone to Francheuil with her step-brother, and that Miss Viner was still in her room. Darrow sent her word that he was the bearer of a message from the lodge, and a moment later he heard her coming down the stairs.
Chapter XX
For a second, as she approached him, the quick tremor of her glance showed her all intent on the same thought as himself. He transmitted his instructions with mechanical precision, and she answered in the same tone, repeating his words with the intensity of attention of a child not quite sure of understanding. Then she disappeared up the stairs.
Darrow lingered on in the hall, not knowing if she meant to return, yet inwardly sure she would. At length he saw her coming down in her hat and jacket. The rain still streaked the window panes, and, in order to say something, he said: “You’re not going to the lodge yourself?”