XIV

The laboured resistance which Lady Constantine's judgment had offered to

her rebellious affection ere she learnt that she was a widow, now passed

into a bashfulness that rendered her almost as unstable of mood as

before. But she was one of that mettle--fervid, cordial, and

spontaneous--who had not the heart to spoil a passion; and her affairs

having gone to rack and ruin by no fault of her own she was left to a

painfully narrowed existence which lent even something of rationality to

her attachment. Thus it was that her tender and unambitious soul found

comfort in her reverses.

As for St. Cleeve, the tardiness of his awakening was the natural result

of inexperience combined with devotion to a hobby. But, like a spring

bud hard in bursting, the delay was compensated by after speed. At once

breathlessly recognizing in this fellow-watcher of the skies a woman who

loved him, in addition to the patroness and friend, he truly translated

the nearly forgotten kiss she had given him in her moment of despair.

Lady Constantine, in being eight or nine years his senior, was an object

even better calculated to nourish a youth's first passion than a girl of

his own age, superiority of experience and ripeness of emotion exercising

the same peculiar fascination over him as over other young men in their

first ventures in this kind.

The alchemy which thus transmuted an abstracted astronomer into an eager

lover--and, must it be said, spoilt a promising young physicist to

produce a common-place inamorato--may be almost described as working its

change in one short night. Next morning he was so fascinated with the

novel sensation that he wanted to rush off at once to Lady Constantine,

and say, 'I love you true!' in the intensest tones of his mental

condition, to register his assertion in her heart before any of those

accidents which 'creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,'

should occur to hinder him. But his embarrassment at standing in a new

position towards her would not allow him to present himself at her door

in any such hurry. He waited on, as helplessly as a girl, for a chance

of encountering her.

But though she had tacitly agreed to see him on any reasonable occasion,

Lady Constantine did not put herself in his way. She even kept herself

out of his way. Now that for the first time he had learnt to feel a

strong impatience for their meeting, her shyness for the first time led

her to delay it. But given two people living in one parish, who long

from the depths of their hearts to be in each other's company, what

resolves of modesty, policy, pride, or apprehension will keep them for

any length of time apart?

One afternoon he was watching the sun from his tower, half echoing the

Greek astronomer's wish that he might be set close to that luminary for

the wonder of beholding it in all its glory, under the slight penalty of

being consumed the next instant. He glanced over the high-road between

the field and the park (which sublunary features now too often distracted

his attention from his telescope), and saw her passing along that way.

She was seated in the donkey-carriage that had now taken the place of her

landau, the white animal looking no larger than a cat at that distance.

The buttoned boy, who represented both coachman and footman, walked

alongside the animal's head at a solemn pace; the dog stalked at the

distance of a yard behind the vehicle, without indulging in a single

gambol; and the whole turn-out resembled in dignity a dwarfed state

procession.

Here was an opportunity but for two obstructions: the boy, who might be

curious; and the dog, who might bark and attract the attention of any

labourers or servants near. Yet the risk was to be run, and, knowing

that she would soon turn up a certain shady lane at right angles to the

road she had followed, he ran hastily down the staircase, crossed the

barley (which now covered the field) by the path not more than a foot

wide that he had trodden for himself, and got into the lane at the other

end. By slowly walking along in the direction of the turnpike-road he

soon had the satisfaction of seeing her coming. To his surprise he also

had the satisfaction of perceiving that neither boy nor dog was in her

company.

They both blushed as they approached, she from sex, he from inexperience.

One thing she seemed to see in a moment, that in the interval of her

absence St. Cleeve had become a man; and as he greeted her with this new

and maturer light in his eyes she could not hide her embarrassment, or

meet their fire.

'I have just sent my page across to the column with your book on Cometary

Nuclei,' she said softly; 'that you might not have to come to the house

for it. I did not know I should meet you here.'

'Didn't you wish me to come to the house for it?'

'I did not, frankly. You know why, do you not?'

'Yes, I know. Well, my longing is at rest. I have met you again. But

are you unwell, that you drive out in this chair?'

'No; I walked out this morning, and am a little tired.'

'I have been looking for you night and day. Why do you turn your face

aside? You used not to be so.' Her hand rested on the side of the

chair, and he took it. 'Do you know that since we last met, I have been

thinking of you--daring to think of you--as I never thought of you

before?'

'Yes, I know it.'

'How did you know?'

'I saw it in your face when you came up.'

'Well, I suppose I ought not to think of you so. And yet, had I not

learned to, I should never fully have felt how gentle and sweet you are.

Only think of my loss if I had lived and died without seeing more in you

than in astronomy! But I shall never leave off doing so now. When you

talk I shall love your understanding; when you are silent I shall love

your face. But how shall I know that you care to be so much to me?'

Her manner was disturbed as she recognized the impending self-surrender,

which she knew not how to resist, and was not altogether at ease in

welcoming.

'O, Lady Constantine,' he continued, bending over her, 'give me some

proof more than mere seeming and inference, which are all I have at

present, that you don't think this I tell you of presumption in me! I

have been unable to do anything since I last saw you for pondering

uncertainly on this. Some proof, or little sign, that we are one in

heart!'

A blush settled again on her face; and half in effort, half in

spontaneity, she put her finger on her cheek. He almost devotionally

kissed the spot.

'Does that suffice?' she asked, scarcely giving her words voice.

'Yes; I am convinced.'

'Then that must be the end. Let me drive on; the boy will be back again

soon.' She spoke hastily, and looked askance to hide the heat of her

cheek.

'No; the tower door is open, and he will go to the top, and waste his

time in looking through the telescope.'

'Then you should rush back, for he will do some damage.'

'No; he may do what he likes, tinker and spoil the instrument, destroy my

papers,--anything, so that he will stay there and leave us alone.'

She glanced up with a species of pained pleasure.

'You never used to feel like that!' she said, and there was keen self-

reproach in her voice. 'You were once so devoted to your science that

the thought of an intruder into your temple would have driven you wild.

Now you don't care; and who is to blame? Ah, not you, not you!'

The animal ambled on with her, and he, leaning on the side of the little

vehicle, kept her company.

'Well, don't let us think of that,' he said. 'I offer myself and all my

energies, frankly and entirely, to you, my dear, dear lady, whose I shall

be always! But my words in telling you this will only injure my meaning

instead of emphasize it. In expressing, even to myself, my thoughts of

you, I find that I fall into phrases which, as a critic, I should

hitherto have heartily despised for their commonness. What's the use of

saying, for instance, as I have just said, that I give myself entirely to

you, and shall be yours always,--that you have my devotion, my highest

homage? Those words have been used so frequently in a flippant manner

that honest use of them is not distinguishable from the unreal.' He

turned to her, and added, smiling, 'Your eyes are to be my stars for the

future.'

'Yes, I know it,--I know it, and all you would say! I dreaded even while

I hoped for this, my dear young friend,' she replied, her eyes being full

of tears. 'I am injuring you; who knows that I am not ruining your

future,--I who ought to know better? Nothing can come of this, nothing

must,--and I am only wasting your time. Why have I drawn you off from a

grand celestial study to study poor lonely me? Say you will never

despise me, when you get older, for this episode in our lives. But you

will,--I know you will! All men do, when they have been attracted in

their unsuspecting youth, as I have attracted you. I ought to have kept

my resolve.'

'What was that?'

'To bear anything rather than draw you from your high purpose; to be like

the noble citizen of old Greece, who, attending a sacrifice, let himself

be burnt to the bone by a coal that jumped into his sleeve rather than

disturb the sacred ceremony.'

'But can I not study and love both?'

'I hope so,--I earnestly hope so. But you'll be the first if you do, and

I am the responsible one if you do not.'

'You speak as if I were quite a child, and you immensely older. Why, how

old do you think I am? I am twenty.'

'You seem younger. Well, that's so much the better. Twenty sounds

strong and firm. How old do you think I am?'

'I have never thought of considering.' He innocently turned to

scrutinize her face. She winced a little. But the instinct was

premature. Time had taken no liberties with her features as yet; nor had

trouble very roughly handled her.

'I will tell you,' she replied, speaking almost with physical pain, yet

as if determination should carry her through. 'I am

eight-and-twenty--nearly--I mean a little more, a few months more. Am I

not a fearful deal older than you?'

'At first it seems a great deal,' he answered, musing. 'But it doesn't

seem much when one gets used to it.'

'Nonsense!' she exclaimed. 'It _is_ a good deal.'

'Very well, then, sweetest Lady Constantine, let it be,' he said gently.

'You should not let it be! A polite man would have flatly contradicted

me. . . . O I am ashamed of this!' she added a moment after, with a

subdued, sad look upon the ground. 'I am speaking by the card of the

outer world, which I have left behind utterly; no such lip service is

known in your sphere. I care nothing for those things, really; but that

which is called the Eve in us will out sometimes. Well, we will forget

that now, as we must, at no very distant date, forget all the rest of

this.'

He walked beside her thoughtfully awhile, with his eyes also bent on the

road. 'Why must we forget it all?' he inquired.

'It is only an interlude.'

'An interlude! It is no interlude to me. O how can you talk so lightly

of this, Lady Constantine? And yet, if I were to go away from here, I

might, perhaps, soon reduce it to an interlude! Yes,' he resumed

impulsively, 'I will go away. Love dies, and it is just as well to

strangle it in its birth; it can only die once! I'll go.'

'No, no!' she said, looking up apprehensively. 'I misled you. It is no

interlude to me,--it is tragical. I only meant that from a worldly point

of view it is an interlude, which we should try to forget. But the world

is not all. You will not go away?'

But he continued drearily, 'Yes, yes, I see it all; you have enlightened

me. It will be hurting your prospects even more than mine, if I stay.

Now Sir Blount is dead, you are free again,--may marry where you will,

but for this fancy of ours. I'll leave Welland before harm comes of my

staying.'

'Don't decide to do a thing so rash!' she begged, seizing his hand, and

looking miserable at the effect of her words. 'I shall have nobody left

in the world to care for! And now I have given you the great telescope,

and lent you the column, it would be ungrateful to go away! I was wrong;

believe me that I did not mean that it was a mere interlude to _me_. O

if you only knew how very, very far it is from that! It is my doubt of

the result to you that makes me speak so slightingly.'

They were now approaching cross-roads, and casually looking up they

beheld, thirty or forty yards beyond the crossing, Mr. Torkingham, who

was leaning over a gate, his back being towards them. As yet he had not

recognized their approach.

The master-passion had already supplanted St. Cleeve's natural

ingenuousness by subtlety.

'Would it be well for us to meet Mr. Torkingham just now?' he began.

'Certainly not,' she said hastily, and pulling the rein she instantly

drove down the right-hand road. 'I cannot meet anybody!' she murmured.

'Would it not be better that you leave me now?--not for my pleasure, but

that there may arise no distressing tales about us before we know--how to

act in this--this'--(she smiled faintly at him) 'heartaching extremity!'

They were passing under a huge oak-tree, whose limbs, irregular with

shoulders, knuckles, and elbows, stretched horizontally over the lane in

a manner recalling Absalom's death. A slight rustling was perceptible

amid the leafage as they drew out from beneath it, and turning up his

eyes Swithin saw that very buttoned page whose advent they had dreaded,

looking down with interest at them from a perch not much higher than a

yard above their heads. He had a bunch of oak-apples in one hand,

plainly the object of his climb, and was furtively watching Lady

Constantine with the hope that she might not see him. But that she had

already done, though she did not reveal it, and, fearing that the latter

words of their conversation had been overheard, they spoke not till they

had passed the next turning.

She stretched out her hand to his. 'This must not go on,' she said

imploringly. 'My anxiety as to what may be said of such methods of

meeting makes me too unhappy. See what has happened!' She could not

help smiling. 'Out of the frying-pan into the fire! After meanly

turning to avoid the parson we have rushed into a worse publicity. It is

too humiliating to have to avoid people, and lowers both you and me. The

only remedy is not to meet.'

'Very well,' said Swithin, with a sigh. 'So it shall be.'

And with smiles that might more truly have been tears they parted there

and then.