“I saw her going there just now. Is it quite safe to let so precious a being into such dangerous precincts?”
The remark ended with that laugh upon the hearty note of which so much of his popularity rested. Most people found it impossible not to respond to this breezy way of Colonel Harcourt’s. But there was not a flicker of change upon Sir David’s countenance.
Yet, when he spoke, after coldly pausing till the other’s mirth should have utterly ceased, and remarked that his cousin, Mrs. Marvel, was associated with her father’s scientific investigations and therefore was the only person, besides the speaker himself, whom he allowed to make use of the garden, the colonel felt that his insinuation had been understood and rebuked by a courtesy severer than anger. His resentment suddenly rose. The easy contempt with which he had hitherto regarded the uncongenial personality of his host, flamed on the instant into active dislike; and he was glad to have a weapon in his hand which might find a joint in this irritatingly impenetrable armour.
“Indeed!” cried he, ruffled out of his usual commanding urbanity.—Trying to smile he found himself sneering. “Indeed? Aha, very good, I declare! It is worth while living on a tower to be able to retain those confiding views of life! It has never struck you, I suppose—the stars are doubtless never in the least irregular in their courses, but young and charming widows have little ways of their own—it has never struck you that this forbidden wilderness might be an ideal spot for rendezvous?”
Sir David shot at the speaker a look very unlike that far-off indifferent glance which was all he had hitherto vouchsafed him. This sudden, steel-bright, concentrated gaze was like the baring of a blade. Dim stories of the recluse’s romantic and violent youth began to stir in Harcourt’s memory. He straightened his own sturdy figure and the instinctive hot defiance of the fighter at the first hint of an opposing spirit ran tingling to his stiffening muscles.
So, for a quick-breathing moment, they fixed each other. Then, through the drowsy humming summer stillness rang from within the Herb-Garden the note of Herrick’s singing voice:
“Go, lovely rose and, interwove
With other flowers, bind my love.
Tell her too, she must not be,
Longer flowing, longer free——”