indulgence. They came out again and, while Sidney grubbed in the
gravel of the shore, sat selfishly on the Parade, to the
disappointment of Miss Teagle, who had fixed her hopes on a fly and a
ladylike visit to the castle. Baron had his eye on his watch--he had
to think of his train and the dismal return and many other melancholy
things; but the sea in the afternoon light was a more appealing
picture; the wind had gone down, the Channel was crowded, the sails
of the ships were white in the purple distance. The young man had
asked his companion (he had asked her before) when she was to come
back to Jersey Villas, and she had said that she should probably stay
at Dover another week. It was dreadfully expensive, but it was doing
the child all the good in the world, and if Miss Teagle could go up
for some things she should probably be able to manage an extension.
Earlier in the day she had said that she perhaps wouldn't return to
Jersey Villas at all, or only return to wind up her connection with
Mrs. Bundy. At another moment she had spoken of an early date, an
immediate reoccupation of the wonderful parlours. Baron saw that she
had no plan, no real reasons, that she was vague and, in secret,
worried and nervous, waiting for something that didn't depend on
herself. A silence of several minutes had fallen upon them while
they watched the shining sails; to which Mrs. Ryves put an end by
exclaiming abruptly, but without completing her sentence: "Oh, if
you had come to tell me you had destroyed them--"

"Those terrible papers? I like the way you talk about 'destroying!'
You don't even know what they are."

"I don't want to know; they put me into a state."

"What sort of a state?"