‘I like him very well,’ said Miss Hadley. ‘I like him so well that I can’t bear to see him making a fool of himself.’
‘How is he making a fool of himself?’ said Mrs. Severn, quickly.
‘Or to see other people making a fool of him,’ said Miss Hadley. ‘There, I have said my say! I don’t know if it be his fault or yours; but the young fellow is losing his head, my dear, and you must see it as well as I do.’
‘I see nothing of the kind,’ said the padrona, with dignity. ‘I am surely old enough to be safe from such nonsense; and you are too old to talk like a school-girl. You are as jealous as a man,’ she added, after a pause, relapsing into easier tones. ‘Would you like me to forbid the poor boy the house?’
‘It might be best,’ said Miss Hadley, stiffly;--‘certainly for him. I don’t know about you.’
‘What folly!’ cried the padrona, with momentary anger; but the children rushed in at the moment, sweeping away all other thoughts. Mrs. Severn, however, was more silent than usual as she sat in the firelight with Edie’s soft arms clasped round her neck. She told but one story all the evening, and that an old one. Her mind was pre-occupied. The governess sitting in the corner grew bitter as she gazed at her. ‘A woman with every blessing of life,--a woman with all those children,’ Miss Hadley said to herself; ‘yet a young man’s silly love is enough to draw her mind away from them,--at her age! What fools we are!’ Thus another little drama sprang into life in a corner, with actors, and accessories, and spectators, all complete. There was Alice in the great dim drawing-room, as usual, playing softly, till the very air seemed to dream and murmur with the wistfulness of her music. ‘This romance should have come to the child,’ Miss Hadley mused, with anger; ‘with the child it would have been natural. With the mother----’ She could not trust herself to realise what she thought about the mother. She had held so different an opinion of her at all former times; the padrona had shown herself so entirely unmoved by such vanities! And now, good heavens, at her age! Such were Miss Hadley’s thoughts as she sat in the twilight, while her friend played with her children. She forgot her sister, who was waiting for her, and all the comforts of the little parlour in Charlotte Street. She would have liked to stay there all night, to keep at her post without intermission, to save the padrona from herself. ‘She cannot realise what she is doing,’ Miss Hadley said in her self-communion. And probably Mrs. Severn was aware of her friend’s inquisition. She had a little flush on her cheeks when she received the Suffolks, for whom she had sent. She went into all the arrangements of the Hydrographic for that evening with an interest which was a little nervous and overstrained. ‘I trust some illustrious stranger may be there to be of use to you,’ she said, with a smile; and took no notice of Miss Hadley, who kept immovably in the background. And when Suffolk, in his best humour and his evening coat, went out to the Hydrographic, where his pictures were being exhibited, the two women, whom he left behind, talked a great deal about Laurie. Poor Laurie! He was very happy, and excited, and in earnest at that moment, believing himself in the fair way of serving his friend. And they both liked him with tenderness, such as women feel for such men. But yet they said ‘Poor Laurie!’ even in their commendation and gratitude; and did not well know why.