CHAPTER IV

A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS

Beatrice Redwing’s visit only extended over the second day, and during that there was little, if any, separate conversation between her and Wilfrid.  The change in her from the free gaiety and restfulness of the morning of her arrival could not escape notice, though she affected a continuance of the bright mood.  Mr. Athel and his sister both observed her real preoccupation, as if of trouble, and mentally attributed it to something that had passed during the afternoon’s ride.  Mrs. Rossall did not look for confidences.  Beatrice would gossip freely enough of trivial experiences, or of the details of faith and ritual, but the innermost veil of her heart was never raised; all her friends felt that, though they could not easily have explained in what way they became conscious of this reserve, she seemed so thoroughly open, not to say so shallow.  She left The Firs to return to town, and thence in a week or two went to Cowes, a favourite abode of her mother’s.

The next day, Emily also left, journeying to London on her way to the north, Wilfrid and she had no second meeting; their parting was formal, in the family circle.  Mr. Athel displayed even more than his usual urbanity; Mrs. Rossall was genuinely gracious; the twins made many promises to write from Switzerland.  Emily was self-possessed, but Wilfrid read in her face that she was going through an ordeal.  He felt the folly of his first proposal, that she should play a part before Mrs. Rossall through the winter months.  He decided, moreover, that no time should be lost in making the necessary disclosure to his father.  Naturally it would be an anxious time with Emily till she had news from him.  She had asked him to direct letters to the Dunfield post office, not to her home; it was better so for the present.

Wilfrid, though anything but weakly nervous, was impatient of suspense, and, in face of a situation like the present, suffered from the excitability of an imaginative temperament.  He had by no means yet outgrown the mood which, when he was a boy, made the anticipation of any delight a physical illness.  In an essentially feeble nature this extreme sensibility is fatal to sane achievement; in Wilfrid it merely enforced the vigour of his will.  As a child he used to exclaim that he could not wait; at present he was apt to say that he would not.  He did not, in very truth, anticipate difficulties with his father, his conviction of the latter’s reasonableness being strongly supported by immense confidence in his own powers of putting a case incontrovertibly.  As he had said to Emily, he could scarcely allow that deep affection for his father dwelt within him, nor did the nature of the case permit him to feel exactly reverent; these stronger emotions were reserved for the memory of the parent who was long dead.  He thought of his father with warm friendliness, that