Elma hurried home full of intense misgivings. She dreaded having to meet her mother’s eye. How on earth could she hide from that searching glance the whole truth as to what had happened in the wood that morning? When she reached home, however, she learned to her relief, from the maid who opened the door to her, that their neighbour, Mr. Gilbert Gildersleeve, the distinguished Q.C., had dropped in for lunch, and this chance diversion supplied Elma with a little fresh courage to face the inevitable. She went straight up to her own room the moment she entered the house, without seeing her mother, and there she waited, bathing her face copiously till some minutes after the lunch bell had rung. For she felt sure she would blush crimson when she met her mother; but as she blushed habitually when strangers came in, the cause of it might thus, perhaps, she vainly flattered herself, escape even those lynx-like eyes of Mrs. Clifford’s.
The great Q.C., a big, overbearing man, with a pair of huge burly hands that somehow seemed to form his chief feature, was a little bit blustering in his talk, as usual; the more so because he had just learned incidentally that something had gone wrong between his daughter Gwendoline and Granville Kelmscott. For though that little episode of private wooing had run its course nominally without the knowledge or consent of either family, Mr. Gilbert Gildersleeve, at least, had none the less been aware for many weeks past of the frequent meetings between Gwendoline and Granville in the dell just beyond the disputed boundary line. And as Mr. Gildersleeve disliked Colonel Kelmscott of Tilgate Park, for a pig-headed esquire, almost as cordially as Colonel Kelmscott disliked Mr. Gildersleeve in return for a rascally lawyer, it had given the great Q.C. no little secret satisfaction in his own soul to learn that his daughter Gwendoline was likely to marry the Colonel’s son and heir, directly against the wishes and consent of his father.
Only that very morning, however, poor Mrs. Gildersleeve, that tired, crushed wife, had imparted to her lord and master, in fear and trembling, the unpleasant intelligence that, so far as she could make out, there was something wrong between Granville and Gwendoline. And this something wrong she ventured to suggest was no mere lover’s tiff of the ordinary kiss-and-make-it-up description, but a really serious difficulty in the way of their marriage. So Mr. Gildersleeve, thus suddenly deprived of his expected triumph, took it out another way by more than even his wonted boisterousness of manner in talking about the fortunes of the Kelmscott family.
“I fancy, myself, you know, Mrs. Clifford,” he was saying, very loud, as Elma entered, “there’s a screw loose just now in the Kelmscott affairs—something rotten somewhere in the state of Denmark. That young fellow, Granville, who’s by no means such a bad lot as his father all round—too good for the family, in fact; too good for the family—Granville’s been accustomed of late to come over into my grounds, beyond the boundary wall, and being anxious above all things to cultivate friendly relations with all my neighbours in the county, I’ve allowed him to come—I’ve allowed him, and I may even say to a certain extent I’ve encouraged him. There at times he’s met by accident my daughter Gwendoline. Oh, dear no”—with uplifted hand, and deprecating lips—“I assure you, nothing of THAT sort, my dear Mrs. Clifford. Gwendoline’s far too young, and I couldn’t dream of allowing her to marry into Colonel Kelmscott’s family. But, however, be that as it may, he’s been in the habit of coming there, till very recently, when all of a sudden, only a week or ten days back, to my immense surprise he ceased at once, and ever since has dropped into the defensive, exactly as he used to do. And I interpret it to mean—”
Elma heard no more of that pompous speech. Her knees shook under her. For she was aware only of Mrs. Clifford’s eyes, fixed mildly and calmly upon her face, not in anger, as she feared, or reproach, but rather in infinite pity. For a second their glances met in mute intercourse of soul, then each dropped their eyelashes as suddenly as before. Through the rest of that lunch Elma sat as in a maze, hearing and seeing nothing. What she ate, or drank, or talked about, she knew not. Mr. Gildersleeve’s pungent and embellished anecdotes of the Kelmscott family and their unneighbourly pride went in at one ear and out at the other. All she was conscious of was her mother’s sympathetic yet unerring eye; she felt sure that at one glance that wonderful thought-reader had divined everything, and seen through and through their interview that morning.
After lunch, the two men strolled upon the lawn to enjoy their cigars, and Elma and her mother were left alone in the drawing-room.
For some minutes neither could make up her mind to break the ice and speak. They sat shame-faced beside one another on the sofa, like a pair of shy and frightened maidens. At last Mrs. Clifford braced herself up to interrupt the awkward silence. “You’ve been in Chetwood Forest, Elma,” she murmured low, looking down and averting her eyes carefully from her trembling daughter.
“Yes, mother,” Elma answered, all aglow with conscious blushes. “In Chetwood Forest.”
“And you met him, dear?” The mother spoke tenderly and sympathetically.
Elma’s heart stood still. “Yes, mother, I met him.”
“And he had the snake there?”
Elma started in surprise. Why dwell upon that seemingly unimportant detail? “Oh yes,” she answered, still redder and hotter than ever. “He had it there. He was painting it.”
Mrs. Clifford paused a minute. Then she went on, with pain. “And he asked you, Elma?”
Elma bowed her head. “Yes, he asked me—and I refused him,” she answered, with a terrible wrench.
“Oh, darling; I know it,” Mrs. Clifford cried, seizing both cold hands in hers. “And I know why, too. But, Elma, believe me, you needn’t have done it. My daughter, my daughter, you might just as well have taken him.”
“No, never,” Elma cried, rising from her seat and moving towards the door in an agony of shame. “I couldn’t. I daren’t. It would be wrong. It would be cruel. But, mother, don’t speak to me of it. Don’t mention it again. Even b............