Hence, indeed, these tears. When Daphne first stepped inside the ancestral mansion of the Trescoes--such had been Lady Barnes's maiden name--she had received a severe shock. The outside, the shell of the house--delightful! But inside!--heavens! what taste, what decoration--what ruin of a beautiful thing! Half the old mantelpieces gone, the ceilings spoiled, the decorations "busy," pretentious, overdone, and nothing left to console her but an ugly row of bad Lelys and worse Highmores--the most despicable collection of family portraits she had ever set eyes upon!
Roger had looked unhappy. "It was father and mother did it," he admitted penitently. "But after all, Daphne, you know they _are_ Trescoes!"--this with a defensive and protecting glance at the Lelys.
Daphne was sorry for it. Her mouth tightened, and certain lines appeared about it which already prophesied what the years would make of the young face. Yet it was a pretty mouth--the mouth, above all, of one with no doubts at all as to her place and rights in the world. Lady Barnes had pronounced it "common" in her secret thoughts before she had known its owner six weeks. But the adjective had never yet escaped the "bulwark of the teeth." Outwardly the mother and daughter-in-law were still on good terms. It was indeed but a week since the son and his wife had arrived--with their baby girl--at Heston Park, after a summer of yachting and fishing in Norway; since Lady Barnes had journeyed thither from London to meet them; and Mr. and Mrs. French had accepted an urgent invitation from Roger, quite sufficiently backed by Daphne, to stay for a few days with Mr. French's old pupil, before the reopening of Eton.
During that time there had been no open quarrels of any kind; but Elsie French was a sensitive creature, and she had been increasingly aware of friction and annoyance behind the scenes. And now here was Lady Barnes let loose! and Daphne might appear at any moment, before she could be re-caged.
"She puts you down so!" cried that lady, making gestures with the paper-knife she had just been employing on the pages of a Mudie book. "If I tell her that something or other--it doesn't matter what--cost at least a great deal of money, she has a way of smiling at you that is positively insulting! She doesn't trouble to argue; she begins to laugh, and raises her eyebrows. I--I always feel as if she had struck me in the face! I know I oughtn't to speak like this; I hadn't meant to do it, especially to a country-woman of hers, as you are."