The two were now standing opposite to each other,
one on each side the fire-place; their words were
not very fond, but their mutual looks atoned for verbal
deficiencies. At least, the best treasure of Mrs.
Bretton’s life was certainly casketed in her
son’s bosom; her dearest pulse throbbed in his
heart. As to him, of course another love shared
his feelings with filial love, and, no doubt, as the
new passion was the latest born, so he assigned it
in his emotions Benjamin’s portion. Ginevra!
Ginevra! Did Mrs. Bretton yet know at whose feet
her own young idol had laid his homage? Would
she approve that choice? I could not tell; but
I could well guess that if she knew Miss Fanshawe’s
conduct towards Graham: her alternations between
coldness and coaxing, and repulse and allurement;
if she could at all suspect the pain with which she
had tried him; if she could have seen, as I had seen,
his fine spirits subdued and harassed, his inferior
preferred before him, his subordinate made the instrument
of his humiliation—then Mrs. Bretton
would have pronounced Ginevra imbecile, or perverted,
or both. Well—I thought so too.
That second evening passed as sweetly as the first—more
sweetly indeed: we enjoyed a smoother interchange
of thought; old troubles were not reverted to, acquaintance
was better cemented; I felt happier, easier, more
at home. That night—instead of crying
myself asleep—I went down to dreamland by
a pathway bordered with pleasant thoughts.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WE QUARREL.
During the first days of my stay at the Terrace, Graham
never took a seat near me, or in his frequent pacing
of the room approached the quarter where I sat, or
looked pre-occupied, or more grave than usual, but
I thought of Miss Fanshawe and expected her name to
leap from his lips. I kept my ear and mind in
perpetual readiness for the tender theme; my patience
was ordered to be permanently under arms, and my sympathy
desired to keep its cornucopia replenished and ready
for outpouring. At last, and after a little inward
struggle, which I saw and respected, he one day launched
into the topic. It was introduced delicately;
anonymously as it were.
“Your friend is spending her vacation in travelling,
I hear?”
“Friend, forsooth!” thought I to myself:
but it would not do to contradict; he must have his
own way; I must own the soft impeachment: friend
let it be. Still, by way of experiment, I could
not help asking whom he meant?
He had taken a seat at my work-table; he now laid
hands on a reel of thread which he proceeded recklessly
to unwind.
“Ginevra—Miss Fanshawe, has accompanied
the Cholmondeleys on a tour through the south of France?”
“She has.”
“Do you and she correspond?”
“It will astonish you to hear that I never once
thought of making application for that privilege.”
