There was also something of pride of blood in her approval of his high-bred air; and, at the same time, a sufficient consciousness of the remoteness of their kinship to make the memory of his lips upon hers a troubling one. Added to this, there was a baffling impression in the atmosphere of apartness from the world which enwrapped him. His eyes—what did they see as they looked at her so long, so straight? Not the living Ellinor: no man could so look on a woman, as man on woman, without passion or effrontery! Not once had he smiled. With all his courtesy—a courtesy that sat on him as becomingly as his garments—hardly had he noticed her ministration to plate or glass. The carelessness, also, with which he accepted her arrival, without an inquiry as to its cause, without the smallest show of interest in her past and present circumstances, stirred her imagination, whilst it vexed her vanity.
“I believe,” she thought, “he has even forgotten I have ever been married. Nay I vow,” thought she, a little amused, a good deal piqued, “it is a matter of serene indifference to cousin David whether I be maid, wife, or widow!”
“Ellinor, my girl,” said the old man, pushing his plate from him, “this sort of thing is well enough for once in a way, and more particularly as my work, thanks to your timely assistance, is concluded for the night. But I must not be tempted to such an abandonment to the appetites another evening!”
“Very well, father,” answered she demurely, while a dimple crept out, as she surveyed his unfinished slice of ham and the fragments of his bread.
“As to the wine,” pursued he, “it is another matter. I will not deny that wine, producing this pleasant exhilaration (were it not accompanied by the not disagreeable langour which I now feel, and which is the result of my own self-indulgence) might stimulate the brain to greater lucidity than does the usual liquor provided by Mrs. Nutmeg. It is quite possible,” he went on, leaning back in his chair while the lamplight played on the shrunken line of his figure, on the silver beard, and the diaphanous countenance. “It is quite possible that even as the plant requires sun-rays to produce its designed colour, so the veins of man may require this distillation of sun-heat and sun-light to liberate to the utmost his potential forces. David, we may both be the better of this drinkable sunshine!”
As he spoke, he meditatively sipped and gazed at the glass which his daughter had unobtrusively refilled.
The astronomer had been crumbling the white bread and eating and drinking much in the same frugal and half unconscious manner as the simpler; it seemed as if spirits so attuned to secluded paths of thought could scarce condescend to notice the material needs.
But upon Master Simon’s last remark, Sir David put down his beaker.
“Drinkable sunshine!” he cried, the light of the enthusiast leaped into his eye. He rose from the table as he spoke. “Ah, cousin Simon, I have this night drunk into my soul its fill of creating light.”
“Pooh! With your cold stars,” scoffed the simpler, once more eyeing the gorgeous colour of the wine against the light.