And he woke up from that self-absorbed dullness which was the aspect he presented in general, and pointed out to her peak after peak, not without an occasional glance at Roderick in the background, who gave him a nod back again over the young lady’s head. Evelyn looked on, perceiving all these little details with an unembarrassed attention. It was seldom she was so free to observe what was going on about her: the business of a large household, to which she was yet unaccustomed, the calls of her husband upon her attention, the cares of the mistress of the house to keep everything going, had lessened her possibilities of observation. But the position of an elder woman in the midst of a little company of this description is sometimes almost uncomfortably free. There is no pretence made of any particular regard to her amusement, and she is allowed to observe at her leisure. Evelyn perceived, with a little alarm, the position of affairs. Was it perhaps accidental--a mere fortuitous conjunction of the two who most attracted each other? Was it perhaps a plan, a scheme? She had been so long out of the world of social scheming that she had forgotten its ways. She observed for a little with a half benign amusement the skirmishing of Marion and Eddy, the little onslaughts and withdrawals, provocations not much more refined than a milkmaid’s jibes, responses not in better taste. Mrs. Rowland had not thought much of the “style” of Edward Saumarez, the younger, from the beginning--an old-fashioned word, which in the language of the present day would mean that she thought him “bad form.” Words change, and so do all forms of expression, but the actual fact does not alter. As she mentally compared this commonplace young man whose manners she thought bad and whose person was so entirely without distinction, with his father--the love of her own youth, the handsome, distinguished, courtly Saumarez of another day, a sudden rush of painful feeling came over Evelyn. Was this what he intended? Was it to be so done that she herself should seem the schemer, the matchmaker, promoting the advantage of his son and daughter above that of her husband’s children? Nobody remarked how Evelyn was looking, or inquired what it was that gave occasion for that sudden flush and paleness. Was this what it meant--his eagerness to connect his children with her, that she should invite them, assume the responsibility of them? Evelyn saw everything that might have been is his mind as with the flash of a sudden light. He had jilted her, but she had never ceased to care for him, people would say; as witness the results. Had she not thrown her husband’s boy and girl, inexperienced, suspecting nothing, made of money, into the grip of those clever Saumarez?