Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/377

 resented in Clare owed their origin to her mother. That brooch of hers was responsible for a great deal.

Fixing his eyes upon it he said, “You've come about Clare?”

“Yes, Peter.” Mrs. Rossiter settled herself more comfortably, spread her skirts, folded her hands. “She's very unhappy.”

The mild eyes baffled him.

“I'm terribly sorry. I will do anything I can, but I think—that I had a right”—he faltered a little; it was so like talking to an empty Dairy—“had a right to mind. Two old friends of mine—two of the best friends that I have in the world were here yesterday and Clare—”

“I don't think,” the soft voice broke in upon him whilst the eyes searched his body up and down, “that, even now, Peter, you quite understand Clare—”

“No,” he said eagerly, “I know. I'm blundering, stupid. Lots of times I've irritated her, and now again.” He paused, but then added, with a touch of his old stubbornness—“But they were friends of mine—she should have treated them so.”

Mrs. Rossiter felt that she did indeed hate the young man.

“Clare is very unhappy,” she repeated. “She tells me that she has been crying all night. You must remember, Peter, that her life has been very different to yours—”

He wished that she would not repeat herself; he wished that she would not always use the same level voice; he wanted insanely to tell her that she ought to say “different from”—he could not take his eyes from the brooch. But the thought of Clare came to him and he bowed himself once more humbly.

“I will see that things are better,” he said earnestly. “I don't know what has been the matter lately—my work and everything has been wrong, and I expect my temper has been horrible. You know,” he said with a little crooked smile, “that I've got to work to keep it all going, and when I'm writing badly then my temper goes to pieces.”

Mrs. Rossiter, with no appearance of having heard anything that he had said, continued—

“You know, Peter, that your temperament is very