"If you aren't careful you'll be as big as any of us."
"Oh, mother!"
The interview fell to a lower plane of emotion.
It even fell as far as Maggie.
What chiefly preoccupied Constance was a subtle change in her mother.
She found her mother fussy in trifles.
Her manner of laying down her mantle, of smoothing out her gloves, and her anxiety that her bonnet should not come to harm, were rather trying, were perhaps, in the very slightest degree, pitiable.
It was nothing; it was barely perceptible, and yet it was enough to alter Constance's mental attitude to her mother.
"Poor dear!" thought Constance.
"I'm afraid she's not what she was."
Incredible that her mother could have age in less than six weeks!
Constance did not allow for the chemistry that had been going on in herself.
The encounter between Mrs. Baines and her son-in-law was of the most satisfactory nature.
He was waiting in the parlour for her to descend.
He made himself exceedingly agreeable, kissing her, and flattering her by his evidently sincere desire to please.
He explained that he had kept an eye open for the waggonette, but had been called away.
His
"Dear me!" on learning about Aunt Harriet lacked nothing in conviction, though both women knew that his affection for Aunt Harriet would never get the better of his reason.
To Constance, her husband's behaviour was marvellously perfect.
She had not suspected him to be such a man of the world.
And her eyes said to her mother, quite unconsciously:
"You see, after all, you didn't rate Sam as high as you ought to have done.
Now you see your mistake."
As they sat waiting for dinner, Constance and Mrs. Baines on the sofa, and Samuel on the edge of the nearest rocking-chair, a small scuffling noise was heard outside the door which gave on the kitchen steps, the door yielded to pressure, and Fan rushed importantly in, deranging mats.
Fan's nose had been hinting to her that she was behind the times, not up-to-date in the affairs of the household, and she had hurried from the kitchen to make inquiries.
It occurred to her en route that she had been washed that morning.
The spectacle of Mrs. Baines stopped her.
She stood, with her legs slightly out-stretched, her nose lifted, her ears raking forward, her bright eyes blinking, and her tail undecided.
"I was sure I'd never smelt anything like that before," she was saying to herself, as she stared at Mrs. Baines.
And Mrs. Baines, staring at Fan, had a similar though not the same sentiment.
The silence was terrible.
Constance took on the mien of a culprit, and Sam had obviously lost his easy bearing of a man of the world.
Mrs. Baines was merely thunderstruck.
A dog!
Suddenly Fan's tail began to wag more quickly; and then, having looked in vain for encouragement to her master and mistress, she gave one mighty spring and alighted in Mrs. Baines's lap.
It was an aim she could not have missed.
Constance emitted an
"Oh, FAN!" of shocked terror, and Samuel betrayed his nervous tension by an involuntary movement.
But Fan had settled down into that titanic lap as into heaven.
It was a greater flattery than Mr. Povey's.
"So your name's Fan!" murmured Mrs. Baines, stroking the animal.
"You are a dear!"
"Yes, isn't she?" said Constance, with inconceivable rapidity.
The danger was past.
Thus, without any explanation, Fan became an accepted fact.
The next moment Maggie served the Yorkshire pudding.
"Well, Maggie," said Mrs. Baines. "So you are going to get married this time?
When is it?"
"Sunday, ma'am."
"And you leave here on Saturday?"