She had also his expression when he
intended to be disagreeable. She was the Dowager Lady Anstruthers,
and being an entirely revolting old person at her best, she objected
extremely to the transatlantic bride who had made her a dowager, though
she was determinedly prepared to profit by any practical benefit likely
to accrue.
"Well, Nigel," she said in a deep voice. "Here you are at last."
This was of course a statement not to be refuted. She held out a
leathern cheek, and as Sir Nigel also presented his, their caress of
greeting was a singular and not effusive one.
"Is this your wife?" she asked, giving Rosalie a bony hand. And as he
did not indignantly deny this to be the fact, she added, "How do you
do?"
Rosalie murmured a reply and tried to control herself by making another
effort to swallow the lump in her throat. But she could not swallow
it. She had been keeping a desperate hold on herself too long. The
bewildered misery of her awakening, the awkwardness of the public row
at the station, the sulks which had filled the carriage to repletion
through all the long drive, and finally the jangling bells which had
so recalled that last joyous day at home--at home--had brought her to
a point where this meeting between mother and son--these two stony,
unpleasant creatures exchanging a reluctant rub of uninviting cheeks--as
two savages might have rubbed noses--proved the finishing impetus to
hysteria.
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