The Prisoner

								

"She is a very pretty woman," said her father, with a wise gentleness of
his own. Lydia often saw him holding the balance for her intemperate
judgments, his grain of gold forever equalising her dross. "I think
she'd be called a beautiful woman. Jeff thought she was."
"Do you actually believe, Farvie," said Lydia, "that she hasn't been to
see him once in all these hideous years?"
"I know it," said he. "However, we mustn't blame her. She may be a timid
woman. We must stand by her and encourage her and make it easier for her
to meet him now. Jeff was very much in love with her. He'll understand
her better than we do."
"I don't understand her at all," said Lydia, "unless you're going to let
us say she's selfish and a traitor and----"
"No, no," said Anne. "We don't know her. We haven't even seen her. We
must do what Farvie says, and then what Jeff says. I feel as if Jeff had
thought things out a lot."
"Yes," said Lydia, and bit her lip on the implied reason that he'd had
plenty of time.
"Yes," said the colonel gravely, in his own way. "I'd better go over
there early to-morrow afternoon. Before the reporters get at her."
"Maybe they've done it already," Lydia suggested, and the gravity of his
face accorded in the fear that it might be so.
Lydia felt no fear: a fiery exultation, rather. She saw no reason why
Esther should be spared her share of invasion, except, indeed, as it
might add to the publicity of the thing.
"You'll tell her, Farvie," Anne hesitated, "just what we'd decided to do
about his coming--about meeting him?"
"Yes," said he. "In fact, I should consult her. She must have thought
out things for herself, just as he must. I should tell her he
particularly asked us not to meet him. But I don't think that would
apply to her. I think it would be a beautiful thing for her to do. If
reporters are there----"
"They will be," Lydia interjected savagely.
"Well, if they are, it wouldn't be a bad thing for them to report that
his wife was waiting for him. It would be right and simple and
beautiful. But if she doesn't meet him, certainly we can't. That would
give rise to all kinds of publicity and pain. I think she'll see that."
"I don't think she'll see anything," said Lydia. "She's got a heart like
a stone."
"Oh, don't say that," Anne besought her, "in advance."
"It isn't in advance," said Lydia. "It's after all these years."

III

The next day, after an early dinner--nobody in Addington dined at
night--the colonel, though not sitting down to a definite conclave, went
over with Anne and Lydia every step of his proposed call on Esther, as
if they were planning a difficult route and a diplomatic mission at the
end, and later, in a state of even more exquisite personal fitness than
usual, the call being virtually one of state, he set off to find his
daughter-in-law. Anne and Lydia walked with him down the drive. They had