"Yes," he said, though she had not spoken. "Her mother would have known what was right--and fitting, but since she was taken from me I feel it--a responsibility, to say the least."
"In everything. That is, unless it was to your own disadvantage--or what would certainly be regarded so. You mean me to be frank, I think?"
"Of course! In any case, I am not sure that you are capable of concealing your sentiments."
"Then," said Coulthurst gravely, "I should like you to remember that Grace has nothing."
Mrs. Esmond smiled. "And Geoffrey has a good deal? Still, we have it on excellent authority that the value of a good woman is above rubies."
Major Coulthurst was red-faced and burly, and usually abrupt in his movements; but his attitude became him as he made his companion a little grave inclination.
"Grace is very like her mother--I cannot say more than that."
Perhaps it was not very tactful; though he did not know what the gossips had whispered when he was a reckless subaltern long ago. In any case, he had married a woman with as few possessions as he himself had, and his life had been a hard one ever since. His companion, however, smiled somewhat curiously.
"I think she is in many ways like her father too; but that is scarcely the point," she said. "I have offered to take care of her for you."
"Well," said Coulthurst quietly, "when the time comes we will try to decide, and in the meanwhile I can only thank you."
Then they joined the others, and for awhile sat talking in the shade, until Geoffrey Esmond, who had taken his place beside them, looked up suddenly with a curious contraction of his face.
"I am almost afraid we are going to have some undesirable visitors," he said.
From beyond the trees that shut the lawn off from the village there rose the tooting of a cornet, which was followed by a cheer and a rattle of wheels. Then there was a murmur of harsh voices which broke portentously through the slumbrous quietness, and Esmond, rising abruptly, glanced at the major, who walked a little apart with him. Esmond looked worried.
"Yes," he said in answer to the major's questioning glance, "I fancy they are coming to pull my gates and fences down. Roberts, the groom, heard enough in Hoddam to suggest that they were plotting something of the kind, and I told him to have a horse saddled, though I didn't quite believe it myself. There are, however, evidently several wagonette-loads of them yonder."