You needn't tell Edith or Flo. You needn't
tell anybody. We don't know what'll happen yet."
But in Lady Summerhay all was too sore and blank. This woman she had
never seen, whose origin was doubtful, whose marriage must have soiled
her, who was some kind of a siren, no doubt. It really was too hard! She
believed in her son, had dreamed of public position for him, or, rather,
felt he would attain it as a matter of course. And she said feebly:
"This Major Winton is a man of breeding, isn't he?"
"Rather!" And, stopping before her, as if he read her thoughts, he
added: "You think she's not good enough for me? She's good enough for
anyone on earth. And she's the proudest woman I've ever met. If you're
bothering as to what to do about her--don't! She won't want anything of
anybody--I can tell you that. She won't accept any crumbs."
"That's lucky!" hovered on Lady Summerhay's lips; but, gazing at her
son, she became aware that she stood on the brink of a downfall in his
heart. Then the bitterness of her disappointment rising up again, she
said coldly:
"Are you going to live together openly?"
"Yes; if she will."
"You don't know yet?"
"I shall--soon."
Lady Summerhay got up, and the book on dreams slipped off her lap with a
thump. She went to the fireplace, and stood there looking at her son. He
had altered. His merry look was gone; his face was strange to her.
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