“I’m afraid he does,” Helen admitted, and mused, while Festing lighted his pipe.

Stephen was not a prig and she recognized the justice of his arguments, but he was rather hard and his views were too clear-cut.  He saw that a thing was good or bad, but could not see that faults and virtues sometimes merged and there was good in one and bad in the other.

“Well,” she said, “I like Mrs. Charnock, and she is certainly energetic and practical.  She went over the house and suggested some improvements.  For example, you are building a windmill pump for the cattle, and it wouldn’t cost very much to bring a pipe to the house.  A tap is a great convenience and would save Jules’ time filling up the tank.”

“It will need a long pipe and cost more than Sadie thinks, but I’ll have it done.  However, I wish I had thought of it and she hadn’t made the suggestion.  I don’t want Sadie interfering with our house.”

“But you don’t dislike Mrs. Charnock.”

“Not in a way; but I don’t know that I want to see her here.  Sadie has a number of good points, but she’s rather fond of managing other folks’ affairs.  Then she’s not your kind.”

On the whole, Helen was not displeased.  Mrs. Charnock’s bold statements that she could have got Stephen if she had wanted had jarred, but it looked as if she had made an empty boast.

“I thought you were a democrat,” she remarked, smiling.

“So I am, in general; but when it’s a matter of choosing my wife’s friends, I’m an exclusive aristocrat.  That’s the worst of having theories; they don’t apply all round.”

Helen thought his utilitarian dislike of idleness was open to this objection, but it was not the time to urge Bob’s cause.  She would wait for another opportunity, when Stephen had not been delayed, and she made him a humorous curtsey.

“Sometimes you’re rather bearish, and sometimes you’re very nice,” she said, and went into the house.

The Charnocks returned a week later and came again at regular intervals, while Helen rode over to their house now and then.  Festing refused to accompany her and sometimes grumbled, but on the whole tolerated Charnock’s visits so long as they did not delay his work.  Nothing must be allowed to interfere with that, for he was uneasily conscious that he had set himself too big a task.  His dislike to using his wife’s money had spurred him on, and he had sown a very large crop at a heavy expense for labor, horses, and machines.  Now he must spare no effort to get his money back, and much depended on the weather.  Indeed, he was beginning to feel the strain of the unrelaxing exertion and care about details, and this sometimes reacted upon his temper.  Still he must hold out until the crop was reaped, after which he could go easy during the winter months.