Mrs. Pope's eye was relentless; nothing seemed hidden from it; nothing
indeed was hidden from it; Mr. Magnet's back was diagrammatic. Marjorie
was a little flushed and bright-eyed, and professed herself eager, with
an unnatural enthusiasm, to play golf-croquet. It was eloquently
significant that Mr. Magnet did not share her eagerness, declined to
play, and yet when she had started with the Rev. Jopling Baynes as
partner, stood regarding the game with a sort of tender melancholy from
the shade of the big chestnut-tree.
Mrs. Pope joined him unobtrusively.
"You're not playing, Mr. Magnet," she remarked.
"I'm a looker-on, this time," he said with a sigh.
"Marjorie's winning, I think," said Mrs. Pope.
He made no answer for some seconds.
"She looks so charming in that blue dress," he remarked at last, and
sighed from the lowest deeps.
"That bird's-egg blue suits her," said Mrs. Pope, ignoring the sigh.
"She's clever in her girlish way, she chooses all her own
dresses,--colours, material, everything."
(And also, though Mrs. Pope had not remarked it, she concealed her
bills.)
There came a still longer interval, which Mrs. Pope ended with the
slightest of shivers. She perceived Mr. Magnet was heavy for sympathy
and ripe to confide. "I think," she said, "it's a little cool here.
Shall we walk to the Water Garden, and see if there are any white
lilies?"
"There are," said Mr. Magnet sorrowfully, "and they are very
beautiful--_quite_ beautiful."
He turned to the path along which he had so recently led Marjorie.
He glanced back as they went along between Lady Petchworth's herbaceous
border and the poppy beds. "She's so full of life," he said, with a sigh
in his voice.
Mrs. Pope knew she must keep silent.
"I asked her to marry me this afternoon," Mr. Magnet blurted out. "I
couldn't help it."
Mrs. Pope made her silence very impressive.
"I know I ought not to have done so without consulting you"--he went on
lamely; "I'm very much in love with her. It's----It's done no harm."
Mrs. Pope's voice was soft and low. "I had no idea, Mr. Magnet.... You
know she is very young. Twenty. A mother----"
"I know," said Magnet. "I can quite understand. But I've done no harm.
She refused me. I shall go away to-morrow. Go right away for ever....
I'm sorry."
Another long silence.
"To me, of course, she's just a child," Mrs. Pope said at last. "She
_is_ only a child, Mr. Magnet. She could have had no idea that anything
of the sort was in your mind----"
Her words floated away into the stillness.
For a time they said no more. The lilies came into sight, dreaming under
a rich green shade on a limpid pool of brown water, water that slept and
brimmed over as it were, unconsciously into a cool splash and ripple of
escape. "How beautiful!" cried Mrs. Pope, for a moment genuine.
"I spoke to her here," said Mr. Magnet.
The fountains of his confidence were unloosed.
"Now I've spoken to you about it, Mrs. Pope," he said, "I can tell you
just how I--oh, it's the only word--adore her. She seems so sweet and
easy--so graceful----"
Mrs. Pope turned on him abruptly, and grasped his hands; she was deeply
moved. "I can't tell you," she said, "what it means to a mother to hear
such things----"
Words failed her, and for some moments they engaged in a mutual
pressure.
"Ah!" said Mr. Magnet, and had a queer wish it was the mother he had to
deal with.
"Are you sure, Mr. Magnet," Mrs. Pope went on as their emotions
subsided, "that she really meant what she said? Girls are very strange
creatures----"
"She seems so clear and positive."
"Her manner is always clear and positive."
"Yes. I know."
"I know she _has_ cared for you."
"No!"
"A mother sees. When your name used to be mentioned----. But these are
not things to talk about. There is something--something sacred----"
"Yes," he said. "Yes. Only----Of course, one thing----"
Mrs. Pope seemed lost in the contemplation of water-lilies.
"I wondered," said Mr. Magnet, and paused again.
Then, almost breathlessly, "I wondered if there should be perhaps--some
one else?"
She shook her head slowly. "I should know," she said.
"Are you sure?"
"I know I should know."
"Perhaps recently?"
"I am sure I should know. A mother's intuition----"
Memories possessed her for awhile. "A girl of twenty is a mass of
contradictions. I can remember myself as if it was yesterday. Often one
says no, or yes--out of sheer nervousness.... I am sure there is no
other attachment----"
It occurred to her that she had said enough. "What a dignity that old
gold-fish has!" she remarked. "He waves his tail--as if he were a beadle
waving little boys out of church."