“Don’t say that, my dear, of a woman that will soon be the minister’s wife.”
“The minister’s wife!” he said, with a great explosion of laughter. And then he grew suddenly grave. “Old Logan,” he said, with a sort of hesitation, “had--a daughter, if I remember right.”
“If you remember right! Susie Logan, that you played with when you were both bairns--that grew up with you--that I once thought---- a daughter! Well I wot, and you too, that he had a daughter.”
“Well, mother,” he said, subdued, “I remember very well, if that will please you better. Susie: yes, that was her name. And Susie--I suppose she is married long ago?”
“They are meaning,” said Mrs Ogilvy, with an intonation of scorn, “to marry her now.”
“What does that mean--to marry her now? Do you mean she has never married--Susie? And why? She must be old now,” he said, with a half laugh. “I suppose she has lost her looks. And had no man the sense to see she was--well, a pretty girl--when she was a pretty girl?”
“If that was all you thought she was!” said Mrs Ogilvy--even her son was not exempted from her disapproval where Susie was concerned. She paused again, however, and said, more softly, “It has not been for want of opportunity. The man that wants her now wanted her at twenty. She has had her reasons, no doubt.”
“Reasons--against taking a husband? I never heard there were any--in a woman’s mind.”
“There are maybe more things in heaven and earth--than you just have the best information upon,” she said.
She thought it expedient after this to go up-stairs a little, to look for something Janet wanted, she explained. Sometimes there were small matters which affected her more than the greater ones. The early terrible impression of him was wearing a little away. She had got used to his new aspect, to his new voice, to the changed and altered being he was. The bitterness of the discovery was over. She knew more or less what to expect of him now, as she had known what to expect of the boyish Robbie of old; and, indeed, this man who was made up of so many things that were new to her had thrown a strange and painful light on the Robbie of old, whom during so many years she had made into an ideal of all that was hopeful and beautiful in youth. She remembered now, yet was so unwilling to remember. She was very patient, but patient as she was, there were some things, some little things, which she found hard to bear; as for instance about Susie--Susie: that she was a pretty girl, but must be old now, and had probably lost her looks,--was that all that Robert Ogilvy knew of Susie? It gave her a sharp pang of anger, in spite of her great patience, in spite of herself.