It was the ninth day of her tenancy at Vine Cottage, and she and Dr.
Schubert were already old friends. With the exception of a reference
to Eileen, whom the quality rather than the content of his allusion
marked as his favourite, he had studiously avoided any comment on
the Trenches that would serve to divert the free flow of her own
sensitive perception. Larimore and Sydney Schubert were of about the
same age--had been intimate friends from boyhood. Syd’s affection for
Lary, at one period of his youth, had overflowed and engulfed Sylvia.
But Mrs. Trench had set her face sternly against any such alliance.
“The obstacle seems to have been that intangible thing, a discrepancy
in age--on the wrong side of the ledger,” the physician explained.
“_There_ is one woman,” he stressed the first word extravagantly, his
eyes twinkling, “who has the whole scheme of life crystallized. With
most of us, certain problems remain fluid. Mrs. Trench _knows_. The
eternal verities don’t admit of argument. My boy was only a medical
student when he went mooning after Sylvia, but his prospects were
good. If he had been born the day before--instead of lagging a stupid
sixteen months after the girl--it would have been all right for her to
wait ten years for him. As it was, he simply wouldn’t do. Mrs. Trench
objected to Walter Marksley on entirely different grounds. Mrs. Trench
is strong for the moral code, and Walter kept a fairly luxuriant crop
of wild oats in his front yard.... But my dear, my dear, I’m developing
the garrulity that is a sure harbinger of old age. Don’t let a word
I’ve been saying serve to bias you in your estimate of your landlady. I
assure you, she’s a trump.”