It is the special peril of the young lover of life, that an inflammability to beauty in women is in a breath intense with him. He is, in truth, a thinly-sealed volcano of our imperishable ancient father; and has it in him to be the multitudinously-amorous of the mythologic Jove. Give him head, he can be civilization’s devil. Is she fair and under a shade?—then is she doubly fair. The shadow about her secretes mystery, just as the forest breeds romance: and mystery is a measureless realm. If we conceive it, we have a mysterious claim on her who is the heart of it.
He marched on that road to the music of sonorous brass for some drunken minutes.
The question came, What of the man who takes advantage of her self-sacrifice?
It soon righted him, and he did Lord Ormont justice, and argued the case against Lady Charlotte’s naked hints.
This dark-eyed heroine’s bearing was assured, beyond an air of dependency. Her deliberate short nod to him at his leave-taking, and the toneless few words she threw to my lord, signified sufficiently that she did not stand defying the world or dreading it.
She had by miracle the eyes which had once charmed him—could again—would always charm. She reminded him of Aminta Farrell’s very eyes under the couchant-dove brows—something of her mouth, the dimple running from a corner. She had, as Aminta had, the self-collected and self-cancelled look, a realm in a look, that was neither depth nor fervour, nor a bestowal, nor an allurement; nor was it an exposure, though there seemed no reserve. One would be near the meaning in declaring it to bewilder men with the riddle of openhandedness. We read it—all may read it—as we read inexplicable plain life; in which let us have a confiding mind, despite the blows at our heart, and some understanding will enter us.
He shut the door upon picture and speculations, returning to them by another door. The lady had not Aminta’s freshness: she might be taken for an elder sister of Aminta. But Weyburn wanted to have her position defined before he set her beside Aminta. He writhed under Lady Charlotte’s tolerating scorn of “the young woman.” It roused an uneasy sentiment of semi-hostility in the direction of my lord; and he had no personal complaint to make.
Lord Ormont was cordial on the day of the secretary’s installation; as if—if one might dare to guess it—some one had helped him to a friendly judgement.
The lady of Aminta’s eyes was absent at the luncheon table. She came into the room a step, to speak to Lord Ormont, dressed for a drive to pay a visit.
The secretary was unnoticed.
Lord Ormont put inquiries to him at table, for the why of his having avoided the profession of arms; and apparently considered that the secretary had made a mistake, and that he would have committed a greater error in becoming a soldier—“in this country.” A man with a grievance is illogical under his burden. He mentioned the name “Lady Ormont” distinctly during some remarks on travel. Lady Ormont preferred the Continent.
Two days later she came to the armchair, as before, met Weyburn’s eyes when he raised them; gave him no home in hers—not a temporary shelter from the pelting of interrogations. She hardly spoke. Why did she come?
But how was it that he was drawn to think of her? Absent or present, she was round him, like the hills of a valley. She was round his thoughts—caged them; however high, however far they flew, they were conscious of her.
She took her place at the midday meal. She had Aminta’s voice in some tones; a mellower than Aminta’s—the voice of one of Aminta’s family. She had the trick of Aminta’s upper lip in speaking. Her look on him was foreign; a civil smile as they conversed. She was very much at home with my lord, whom she rallied for his addiction to his Club at a particular hour of the afternoon. She conversed readily. She reminded him, incidentally that her aunt would arrive early next day. He informed her, some time after, of an engagement “to tiffin with a brother officer,” and she nodded.
They drove away together while the secretary was at his labour of sorting the heap of autobiographical scraps in a worn dispatch-box, pen and pencil jottings tossed to swell the mess when they had relieved an angry reminiscence. He noticed, heedlessly at the moment, feminine handwriting on some few clear sheets among them.
Next day he was alone in the library. He sat before the box, opened it and searched, merely to quiet his annoyance for having left those sheets of the fair amanuensis unexamined. They were not discoverable. They had gone.
He stood up at the stir of the door. It was she, and she acknowledged his bow; she took her steps to her chair.
He was informed that Lord Ormont had an engagement, and he remarked, “I can do the work very well.” She sat quite silent.
He read first lines of the scraps, laid them in various places, as in a preparation for conjurer’s tricks at cards; refraining from a glance, lest he should disconcert the eyes he felt to be on him fitfully.
At last she spoke, and he knew Aminta in his hearing and sight.
“Is Emile Grenat still anglomane?”
An instant before her voice was heard he had been persuading himself that the points of unlikeness between his young Aminta and this tall and stately lady of the proud reserve in her bearing flouted the resemblance.
CHAPTER V. IN WHICH THE SHADES OF BROWNY AND MATEY ADVANCE AND RETIRE
“Emile is as anglomane as ever, and not a bit less a Frenchman,” Weyburn said, in a tone of one who muffles a shock at the heart.
“It would be the poorer compliment to us,” she rejoined.
They looked at one another; she dropped her eyelids, he looked away.
She had the grand manner by nature. She was the woman of the girl once known.
“A soldier, is he?”
“Emile’s profession and mine are much alike, or will be.”
“A secretary?”
Her deadness of accent was not designed to carry her opinion of the post of secretary.
It brought the reply: “We hope to be schoolmasters.”
She drew in a breath; there was a thin short voice, hardly voice, as when one of the unschooled minor feelings has been bruised. After a while she said—
“Does he think it a career?”
“Not brilliant.”
“He was formed for a soldier.”
“He had to go as the road led.”
“A young man renouncing ambition!”
“Considering what we can do best.”
“It signifies the taste for what he does.”
“Certainly that.”
Weyburn had senses to read the word “schoolmaster” in repetition behind her shut mouth. He was sharply sensible of a fall.
The task with his papers occupied him. If he had a wish, it was to sink so low in her esteem as to be spurned. A kick would have been a refreshment. Yet he was unashamed of the cause invoking it. We are instruments to the touch of certain women, and made to play strange tunes.
“Mr. Cuper flourishes?”
“The
