"It's not exactly for you to laugh, Hilary," he said. "It's all of a piece with your cursed sentimentality about those Hughs, and that girl. I knew it would end in a mess."Hilary answered this unjust and unexpected outburst by a look, and Stephen, with the strange feeling of inferiority which would come to him in Hilary's presence against his better judgment, lowered his own glance.
"My dear boy," said Hilary, "if any bit of my character has crept into Thyme, I'm truly sorry."Stephen took his brother's hand and gave it a good grip; and, Cecilia coming in, they all sat down.
Cecilia at once noted what Stephen in his preoccupation had not--that Hilary had come to tell them something. But she did not like to ask him what it was, though she knew that in the presence of their trouble Hilary was too delicate to obtrude his own. She did not like, either, to talk of her trouble in the presence of his. They all talked, therefore, of indifferent things--what music they had heard, what plays they had seen--eating but little, and drinking tea.
In the middle of a remark about the opera, Stephen, looking up, saw Martin himself standing in the doorway. The young Sanitist looked pale, dusty, and dishevelled. He advanced towards Cecilia, and said with his usual cool determination:
"I've brought her back, Aunt Cis."
At that moment, fraught with such relief, such pure joy, such desire to say a thousand things, Cecilia could only murmur: "Oh, Martin!"Stephen, who had jumped up, asked: "Where is she?""Gone to her room."
"Then perhaps," said Stephen, regaining at once his dry composure, "you will give us some explanation of this folly.""She's no use to us at present."
"Indeed!"
"None."
"Then," said Stephen, "kindly understand that we have no use for you in future, or any of your sort."Martin looked round the table, resting his eyes on each in turn.
"You're right," he said. "Good-bye!"
Hilary and Cecilia had risen, too. There was silence. Stephen crossed to the door.
"You seem to me," he said suddenly, in his driest voice, "with your new manners and ideas, quite a pernicious youth."Cecilia stretched her hands out towards Martin, and there was a faint tinkling as of chains.
"You must know, dear," she said, "how anxious we've all been. Of course, your uncle doesn't mean that."The same scornful tenderness with which he was wont to look at Thyme passed into Martin's face.
"All right, Aunt Cis," he said; "if Stephen doesn't mean it, he ought to. To mean things is what matters." He stooped and kissed her forehead. "Give that to Thyme for me," he said. "I shan't see her for a bit.""You'll never see her, sir," said Stephen dryly, "if I can help it!
The liquor of your Sanitism is too bright and effervescent."Martin's smile broadened. "For old bottles," he said, and with another slow look round went out.
Stephen's mouth assumed its driest twist. "Bumptious young devil!"he said. "If that is the new young man, defend us!"Over the cool dining-room, with its faint scent of pinks, of melon, and of ham, came silence. Suddenly Cecilia glided from the room.
Her light footsteps were heard hurrying, now that she was not visible, up to Thyme.
