"Watching for you," she said to Gheena, "to bring you in to tea."
Gheena observed with care how Stafford kept close to Violet as they went up the path, and looked really admiringly at her brilliant colouring and bright face.
"If she'd only let her feet out," said Darby, hobbling in.
Mrs. Weston did not excel in giving tea. It came up upon a brass tray, and was generally both stewed and chilly. Two bought cakes, crumbly and dry, and a plate of thick bread and butter were the eatables.
Mrs. Weston said frankly that tea was washy stuff, and called for the forgotten sugar.
Old Berthe, in frilled cap with banded grey hair, hobbled off rapidly. She was enveloped by many petticoats, and was a taciturn old woman, never going out or making friends.
"Poor Berthe is so anxious about her precious Switzerland," said Violet, "for fear it would go to war, and all her relations in France, and no way of hearing."
Gheena was still gloomy. She could not understand why her stepfather had grown suddenly unpleasant and niggardly, and why they seemed to collide so often. Lancelot, the wounded hero, rather interested her--she was kind-hearted enough to like waiting on him, and was even a little pleased at his dependence upon her.
After a cup of tepid tea and a prolonged period of Mr. Keefe glaring at Mr. Stafford, Gheena got up to go home. Darby having taken the lid off the teapot looked into it critically.
"Made with cold water and let heat, foreign fashion," he said. "Why not, Mrs. Weston, teach your old lady the English way?"
Violet said, "Imagine you knowing the other!" in a curious way.
"And some of you have left your pipe," called out Gheena. She had dropped a glove and stayed to hunt for it. She brought out an ornate carved pipe, lately used.
Violet said she thought it must be the Professor's as no one else claimed it, and took it back.
The Professor, whom they met toddling back from his walk, stopped to speak, and got asked in to Castle Freyne for tea. He thought the pipe was probably that wild Mrs. Weston's. "But her garden is tidier. She did rave at the man Guinane when she came back a few evenings ago, so high that I heard her scolding. Carefully, Darby; stand still, Topsy, you beast!"
The hurt of helplessness came back to Darby; he should have been helping Gheena out. It reminded him of what he was to see her spring to the pony's head and stop the little beast going on.