"Did I not say you would change, Sibyl?" I whispered--"Your coldness and
insensibility to love was unnatural and could not last,--my darling, I
always knew that!"
"You always knew!" she echoed a little disdainfully--"Ah, but you do not
know even now what has chanced to me. Nor shall I tell you--yet. Oh
Geoffrey!--" Here she drew herself out of my embrace, and stooping,
gathered some bluebells in the grass--"See these little flowers growing
so purely and peacefully in the shade by the Avon!--they remind me of
what I was, here in this very place, long ago. I was quite as happy, and
I think as innocent as these blossoms; I had no thought of evil in my
nature,--and the only love I dreamed of was the love of the fairy prince
for the fairy princess,--as harmless an idea as the loves of the flowers
themselves. Yes!--I was then all I should like to be now,--all that I am
not!"
"You are everything that is beautiful and sweet!"--I told her,
admiringly, as I watched the play of retrospective and tender expression
on her perfect face.
"So you judge,--being a man who is perfectly satisfied with his own
choice of a wife!" she said with a flash of her old cynicism--"But I
know myself better than you know me. You call me beautiful and
sweet,--but you cannot call me good! I am not good. Why, the very love
that now consumes me is----"
"What?" I asked her quickly, seizing her hands with the blue-bells in
them, and gazing searchingly into her eyes--"I know before you speak,
that it is the passion and tenderness of a true woman!"
She was silent for a moment. Then she smiled, with a bewitching languor.
"If you know, then I need not tell you"--she said--"So, do not let us
stay here any longer talking nonsense;--'society' will shake its head
over us and accuse us of 'bad form,' and some lady-paragraphist will
write to the papers, and, say--'Mr Tempest's conduct as a host left much
to be desired, as he and his bride-elect were "spooning" all the day.'"
"There are no lady-paragraphists here,"--I said laughing, and encircling
her dainty waist with one arm as I walked.
"Oh, are there not, though!" she exclaimed, laughing also, "Why, you
don't suppose you can give any sort of big entertainment without them do
you? They permeate society. Old Lady Maravale, for example, who is
rather reduced in circumstances, writes a guinea's worth of scandal a
week for one of the papers. And _she_ is here,--I saw her simply gorging
herself with chicken salad and truffles an hour ago!" Here pausing, and
resting against my arm, she peered through the trees. "There are the
chimneys of Lily Cottage where the famous Mavis Clare lives," she said.
"Yes, I know,"--I replied readily--"Rimânez and I have visited her. She
is away just now, or she would have been here to-day."
"Do you like her?" Sibyl queried.
"Very much. She is charming."
"And ... the prince ... does he like her?"
"Well, upon my word," I answered with a smile--"I think he likes her
more than he does most women! He showed the most extraordinary deference
towards her, and seemed almost abashed in her presence. Are you cold,
Sibyl?" I added hastily, for she shivered suddenly and her face grew
pale--"You had better come away from the river,--it is damp under these
trees."
"Yes,--let us go back to the gardens and the sunshine;"--she answered
dreamily--"So your eccentric friend,--the woman-hater,--finds something
to admire in Mavis Clare! She must be a very happy creature I
think,--perfectly free, famous, and believing in all good things of life
and humanity, if one may judge from her books."
"Well, taken altogether, life isn't so very bad!" I observed playfully.
She made no reply,--and we returned to the lawns where afternoon tea was
now being served to the guests, who were seated in brilliant scattered
groups under the trees or within the silken pavilions, while the
sweetest music,--and the strangest, if people had only had ears to hear
it,--both vocal and instrumental, was being performed by those invisible
players and singers whose secret whereabouts was unknown to all, save
Lucio.