The Vision of Desire | Page 8

all the lecturing that's required himself."
The old man shot a swift glance at her from under a pair of shaggy brows.
"How do you know?" he demanded rudely. "You're not married."
Lady Susan nodded.
"That's why."
"Do you mean--do you mean--" he began stormily, then, meeting her quiet, humorous gaze, stammered off into silence. Presently he fixed his monocle in one of his fierce old eyes and surveyed her from behind it as from behind a barricade.
"Do you mean me to understand that that's the reason you declined to marry me?"
She laughed a little.
"I think it was. I didn't want to be browbeaten into submission--as you browbeat poor Virginia, and as you would Tony if he hadn't got a good dash of the Brabazon devil in him. You're a confirmed bully, you know."
"I shouldn't have bullied you." There was an odd note of wistfulness in the harsh voice, and for a moment the handsome, arrogant old face softened incredibly. "I shouldn't have bullied you, Susan."
"Yes, you would. You couldn't have helped it. You'd like to bully my little Ann into marrying Tony if you dared--monster!"
The grim mouth beneath the clipped moustache relaxed into an unwilling smile.
"I believe I would," he admitted. "Hang it all, Susan, it would settle the boy if he were married. He wants a wife to look after him."
"To look after him?"--with a faintly ironical inflection.
"That's what I said"--irritably. "That's--that's what wife's for, dammit! Isn't it?"
"Oh, no." She shook her head regretfully. "That idea's extinct as the dodo. Antiquated, Philip--very."
He glared at her ferociously.
"Worth more than half your modern ideas put together," he retorted. "Women, don't know their duty nowadays. If they'd get married and have babies and keep house in the good, old-fashioned way, instead of trying to be doctors and barristers and the Lord knows what, the world would be a lot better off. A good wife makes a good man--and that's job enough for any woman."
"I should think it might be," agreed Lady Susan meditatively. "But it sounds a trifle feeble, doesn't it? I mean, on the part of the good man. It's making a sort of lean-to greenhouse of him, isn't it?"
"You're outrageous, Susan! I'm not a 'lean-to' anything, but do you suppose I'd be the bad-tempered old ruffian I am--at least, you say I am--if you'd married me thirty years ago?"
"Twenty times worse, probably," she replied promptly. "Because, like most wives, I should have spoiled you."
Sir Philip looked out of the window.
"I've missed that spoiling, Susan," he said. Once again that incongruous little note of wistfulness sounded in his voice. But, an instant later, Lady Susan wondered if her ears had deceived her, for he swung round and snapped out in his usual hectoring manner: "Then you won't help me in this?"
"Help you to marry off Ann to Tony? No, I won't. For one thing, I don't want to spare her. And if ever I have to, it's going to be to some one who'll look after her--and take jolly good care of her, too!"
"Obstinate woman! Well--well"--irritably. "What am I to do, then?"
"Can't you manage your own nephew?"
"No, I can't, confound it! Told me this morning he wanted to be an architect. An architect!" He spoke as though an architect were something that crawled. "Imagine a Brabazon of Lorne turning architect!"
"Well, why not?" placidly. "It's better than being nothing but a gambler--like poor Dick. Tony always did love making plans. Don't you remember, when he was about eight, he made a drawing of heaven, with seating accommodation for the angels--cherubim and seraphim, and so on--in tiers? The general effect was rather like a plan of the Albert Hall"--smiling reminiscently. "Seriously, though, Philip, if the boy wants work, in the name of common sense, let him have it."
"There's plenty of work for him at Lorne"--stubbornly. "Let him learn to manage the property. That's what I want--and what I'll have. God bless my soul! What have I brought the boy up for? To be a comfort in my old age, of course, and a credit to the name. Architect be hanged!"
As he spoke there came the sound of footsteps in the hall outside--light, buoyant steps--and Lady Susan's face brightened.
"That will be Ann," she said. Adding quickly, as though to conclude the subject they had been discussing: "I warn you, Philip, you're driving the boy on too tight a rein."
Sir Philip greeted Ann good-humouredly. In spite of the fact that she showed no disposition to fall in with his wishes and marry Tony, he was extremely fond of her. She was one of the few people who had never been afraid of him. She even contradicted him flatly at times, and, like most autocrats, he found her attitude a refreshing change from that of the majority of people with whom he came in contact.
"Seen Tony in the town?" he