"
Once more Soames felt his mother stroking his hand, in token of her
approval, and as though repeating some form of sacred oath, he muttered
between his teeth: "I will!"
All three went down to the drawing-room together. There, were gathered
the three girls and Dartie; had Irene been present, the family circle
would have been complete.
James sank into his armchair, and except for a word of cold greeting to
Dartie, whom he both despised and dreaded, as a man likely to be always
in want of money, he said nothing till dinner was announced. Soames,
too, was silent; Emily alone, a woman of cool courage, maintained a
conversation with Winifred on trivial subjects. She was never more
composed in her manner and conversation than that evening.
A decision having been come to not to speak of Irene's flight, no view
was expressed by any other member of the family as to the right course
to be pursued; there can be little doubt, from the general tone adopted
in relation to events as they afterwards turned out, that James's
advice: "Don't you listen to her, follow-her and get her back!" would,
with here and there an exception, have been regarded as sound, not only
in Park Lane, but amongst the Nicholases, the Rogers, and at Timothy's.
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