*****
Mistress Kitty, glancing up at her Calf, found, something to her astonishment and further displeasure, a new expression in his eyes. Ardour had been superseded by an unseasonable gravity.
"The creature is a complete menagerie!" she thought to herself, indignantly. "I vow he looks like nothing but an owl in the twilight!"
They wandered together from the Pump Room on to the Abbey Flags, and so, slowly, into the cool and shady Orange Grove; and in a sequestered spot they sat them down on a stone bench.
"When a man," said he, "has been, as I have, brought face to face, within the space of one short morning, with the great events of existence, Death and Love, how hollow and how unworthy do the mock joys and griefs of Society appear to him!"
"Oh la!" said she. "You alarm me. And when did you see Death, my lord?"
"Why," said he, with his innocent gravity, "had you not intervened, my dearest dear, between Sir Jasper and me, this morning, who knows what might have happened?"
"Oh, that!" said she, and her lip curled.
"Ay," said he, "where should I be now, Kitty? The thought haunts me in the midst of my great happiness. Had I killed Sir Jasper, could I have looked upon myself other than as a murderer?"
"Oh, fie, fie," interpolated his mistress impatiently, "who ever thinks of such things in little matters of honour!"