“Lady Arabella—or something of that sort?”
“Precisely. You catch my train of thought, Julius.” Sir Paget smiled his shrewdly reflective smile, as he continued:
“We may regard the Frost family, then, as made—in both its branches. Because my lady, with her possessions and her looks, is undoubtedly made already—indeed, ready-made.
We must move with the times—or at any rate after them. You’ve done it; you’re a commercial man yourself, and doing very well at it, aren’t you?”
“I hope to—after the war. I believe Sir Ezekiel means to keep me at home and put me in charge in London—if London’s still standing, I mean, of course. But I don’t feel it in my bones to rival the kin of Jonathan Frost.”
“Yes—a remarkable family. What do you make of the girl herself?”
“You’ve seen a lot more of her than I have. What do you?”
“Brain above the average, but nothing wonderful. Will very strong—she’s as tenacious as a limpet.”
“I should think so. But she’s got her feelings too, hasn’t she?”
“That’s the point on which I have some doubt. Well, study her for yourself. I think she’s worth it.” He was frowning a little as he spoke, as though his doubt troubled him, although he could give no very good reason for it. “However, she has lots of good qualities—lots,” he ended. He gave the impression of a man trying to reconcile himself to something, and finding his task difficult. He praised the Frost family in handsomely general terms, with hardly a reservation; yet with just the hint of one. It was as though Nina—and her cousin too, for that matter—just failed to give him complete satisfaction, just lacked something that his nature or his taste needed. I did not think that it was anything very serious—not anything that could be called moral, a matter of lack of virtue or presence of vice. It was rather a dourness, too much solidity, too little gayety, humor, responsiveness. The Frosts were perhaps not “out of working harness” enough. Did his mind insist on drawing a contrast? He had loved the girl of whom we did not speak.
Aunt Bertha’s attitude was different, as her letters had suggested. Her acute and eminently practical mind wasted no time in pining for ideals, or in indulging delicate dissatisfactions. It preferred to concentrate on the pleasant aspects of the attainable. One can’t expect everything in this world! And it may even be doubted whether the softer charms, the insidious fascinations, are desirable attributes in women (men, of course, never possess them, so that the question doesn’t arise there); don’t they bring more trouble than good to their possessors, or anyhow to other people? (To her dear Waldo?)