“You tell me Leila’s happy. If she’s happy, she doesn’t need you--need you, that is, in the same way as before. You wanted, I know, to be always in reach, always free and available if she should suddenly call you to her or take refuge with you. I understood that--I respected it. I didn’t urge my case because I saw it was useless. You couldn’t, I understood well enough, have felt free to take such happiness as life with me might give you while she was unhappy, and, as you imagined, with no hope of release. Even then I didn’t feel as you did about it; I understood better the trend of things here. But ten years ago the change hadn’t really come; and I had no way of convincing you that it was coming. Still, I always fancied that Leila might not think her case was closed, and so I chose to think that ours wasn’t either. Let me go on thinking so, at any rate, till you’ve seen her, and confirmed with your own eyes what Susy Suffern tells you.”
All through what Susy Suffern told and retold her during their four-hours’ flight to the hills this plea of Ide’s kept coming back to Mrs. Lidcote. She did not yet know what she felt as to its bearing on her own fate, but it was something on which her confused thoughts could stay themselves amid the welter of new impressions, and she was inexpressibly glad that he had said what he had, and said it at that particular moment. It helped her to hold fast to her identity in the rush of strange names and new categories that her cousin’s talk poured out on her.
With the progress of the journey Miss Suffern’s communications grew more and more amazing. She was like a cicerone preparing the mind of an inexperienced traveller for the marvels about to burst on it.
“You won’t know Leila. She’s had her pearls reset. Sargent’s to paint her. Oh, and I was to tell you that she hopes you won’t mind being the least bit squeezed over Sunday. The house was built by Wilbour’s father, you know, and it’s rather old-fashioned--only ten spare bedrooms. Of course that’s small for what they mean to do, and she’ll show you the new plans they’ve had made. Their idea is to keep the present house as a wing. She told me to explain--she’s so dreadfully sorry not to be able to give you a sitting-room just at first. They’re thinking of Egypt for next winter, unless, of course, Wilbour gets his appointment. Oh, didn’t she write you about that? Why, he wants Borne, you know--the second secretaryship. Or, rather, he wanted England; but Leila insisted that if they went abroad she must be near you. And of course what she says is law. Oh, they quite hope they’ll get it. You see Horace’s uncle is in the Cabinet,--one of the assistant secretaries,--and I believe he has a good deal of pull--”