And he had caught her with her head
tied up in a duster, and her thin arms in a basin of lather. But she did
not care. She now dressed herself most scrupulously, carefully folded her
long, beautiful, blonde hair, touched her pallor with a little rouge, and
put her long string of exquisite crystal beads over her soft green dress.
Now she looked elegant, like a heroine in a magazine illustration, and
almost as unreal.
She found Hadrian and her father talking away. The young man was short of
speech as a rule, but he could find his tongue with his 'uncle'. They
were both sipping a glass of brandy, and smoking, and chatting like a
pair of old cronies. Hadrian was telling about Canada. He was going back
there when his leave was up.
'You wouldn't like to stop in England, then?' said Mr. Rockley.
'No, I wouldn't stop in England,' said Hadrian.
'How's that? There's plenty of electricians here,' said Mr. Rockley.
'Yes. But there's too much difference between the men and the employers
over here--too much of that for me,' said Hadrian.
The sick man looked at him narrowly, with oddly smiling eyes.
'That's it, is it?' he replied.
Matilda heard and understood. 'So that's your big idea, is it, my little
man,' she said to herself. She had always said of Hadrian that he had no
proper _respect_ for anybody or anything, that he was sly and _common_.
She went down to the kitchen for a _sotto voce_ confab with Emmie.
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