Happily an event of this kind exercises a certain influence on all minds. Perhaps Lady Car allowed herself to be moved by her husband’s optimism, and was able with him to believe that Tom might do very well notwithstanding his youthful indiscretions; perhaps it was only that mild and indulgent despair which had taken possession of her inmost soul, and which made it evident that nothing that could be done by her would affect her boy, and that all she was now good for was to tolerate and forgive; but at least she presided over all the rejoicings with apparent pleasure, sparing no fatigue, thinking of everything, resuming to a wonderful extent the more active habits of former years. And Beaufort played to perfection the _rôle_ of the _père noble_, the dignified disinterested paternal guardian giving his support and countenance to the novice without ever interfering with his pretensions as the real master of the house. Indeed Beaufort, with his fastidious superiority, had much greater influence over Tom than his mother had, and overawed him as no one else was capable of doing; so that everything went well during this great era, and the young Laird appeared to the best advantage, making those parents of daughters say to each other that really there was nothing that May or Beatrice need object to. Such birds of prey as hung about the horizon even in these moral regions perhaps sharpened their beaks--but that was out of sight. And the only one of the party who did not wear a guise of happiness was Janet, about whom there hung a nervous haze of suppressed feeling altogether alien to her character and which no one could fathom. Perhaps it would have been more comprehensible had anyone heard the occasional word which now and then dropped from Tom, and which he repeated with a mischievous boy’s pleasure in the trouble he could create. ‘Are you going on the pony to-day?’ he would ask in Lady Car’s presence, with a significant look and laugh. ‘Are you off for the East road?’ No one but Janet knew what he meant. He threw these stones at her, out of the very height of his own triumph. And Janet dared scarcely go out, even in the protection of her mother’s company, lest she should see Charlie Blackmore turning reproachful eyes upon her. He did pass the carriage on one occasion and took off his hat, but the salutation was so universal that no one noted who the individual was: and Janet alone saw the look. Yet even for Janet nothing disagreeable happened during these eight days. CHAPTER XIV