fore the fire.
"And,--I want to finish my talk with you."

Augustine now looked at his mother, at the blush that overwhelmed her as
that possessive word was spoken. "Do you want me to go?"

"No, dear, no.--It is only the coat that is wet, isn't it. Don't go: I
want to see you, of course, after your absence.--Hugh, you will excuse
us; it seems such a long time since I saw him. You and I will finish our
talk on another day.--Or I will write to you."

She knew what it must look like to her husband, this weak recourse to
the protection of Augustine's presence; it looked like bashfulness, a
further feminine wile, made up of self-deception and allurement, a
putting off of final surrender for the greater sweetness of delay. And
as the reading of him flashed through her it brought a strange pang of
shame, for him; of regret, for something spoiled.

Sir Hugh took out his watch and looked at it. "Five o'clock. I told the
station fly to come back for me at five fifteen. You'll give me some
tea, dearest?"

"Of course;--it is time now.--Augustine, will you ring?"

The miserable blush covered her again.

The tea came and they were silent while the maid set it out. Augustine
had thrown himself into a chair and stared before him. Sir Hugh, very
much in possession, kept his place before the fire. Catching Amabel's
eye he smiled at her. He was completely assured. How should he not be?
What, for his seeing, could stand between them now?

When the maid was gone and Amabel was making tea, he came and stood over
her, his hands in his pockets, his handsome head bent to her, talking
lightly, slightly jesting, his voice pitched intimately for her ear, yet
not so intimately that any unkindness of exclusion should appear.
Augustine could hear all he said and gauge how deep was an intimacy that
could wear such lightness, such slightness, as its mask.

Augustine, meanwhile, looked at neither his mother nor Sir Hugh. Turned
from them in his chair he put out his hand for his tea and stared before
him, as if unseeing and unhearing, while he drank it.

It was for her sake, Amabel knew, that Sir Hugh, raising his voice
presently, as though aware of the sullen presence, made a little effort
to lift the gloom. "What sort of a time have you had, Augustine?" he
asked. "Was the weather at Haversham as bad as everywhere else?"

Augustine did not turn his head in replying:--"Quite as bad, I fancy."

"You and young Wallace hammered at metaphysics,