Staffer smiled, though he was puzzled. On his last visit Williamson had rather avoided Dick.
"He can't do him much harm; and, after all, it does not look as if Dick would marry Elsie, as we once thought was possible."
"No; Elsie will not marry him, and I would not wish it, if she were willing."
"Then why need you bother about him?" he said. "If he indulges in foolish extravagances, it's his affair."
She looked at Staffer with a listless expression.
"I don't think you would understand; but I do not want him to come to harm."
"Well, there's something else to talk about. It won't be long before Dick is his own master, and we must leave Appleyard. This will make a big difference, because our means are small and Elsie has been taught no profession. What will she do then, unless she marries somebody?"
"I do not know," Mrs. Woodhouse answered in a placid tone.
Staffer mastered his impatience, for his sister sometimes baffled him, and there was a matter of importance about which he wished to sound her.
"I'm sorry you seem to have a prejudice against Williamson. Is it only on Dick's account?"
"No; I feel that he may bring trouble to us all. We were happier before his visits began. There is a difference now at Appleyard, and I don't like mystery. Why does he call himself Williamson?"
"I have known for some time that it is not."
Staffer felt disturbed. His sister had been shrewder than he expected, and he wondered whether anybody else shared her suspicions; but her statement gave him the lead he wanted.
"Well," he said, "I dare say you can see that to use his proper name just now might make things unpleasant for him."
"He did not use it when he first came here, and nobody would have minded it then."
"I'm not certain; these Scots are prejudiced against foreigners; but it's hard to see why you should dislike the man because he is one of us." He paused and looked at her reproachfully. "Have you forgotten the people you belong to, Gretchen, and where you were born?"
Mrs. Woodhouse's face was troubled, but there was a hint of firmness in her voice as she answered.
"I have not forgotten. But when I married I knew I must choose between my country and my husband's; one could not belong to both. I chose his; his people became mine. He was a good man--I think there are not many like him--and I was happy. When he died, I tried to bring up his daughter as he would have her."