"Yes, do. That will be nice. I hear the tea going into the drawing-room. Oh—another interruption!"
This time Captain Lucas was shown into the study. He had become a frequent visitor there, and Jem's strengthening uplifting influence had worked wonders with the man. Not only had he fought through more than two years without another breakdown; but the very fight had become easier, the craving less keen and more controllable. Jem kept him employed in many ways, found him new interests and pleasures, and exercised, busy as he was, a constant watchfulness, which gave invaluable help to the wife and daughter.
Jean was often at the red house, Emmie often at the Rectory; and something of a friendship had sprung up between the two girls, affectionate on the part of Jean, unlimited in admiration on the part of Emmie.
Captain Lucas looked serious and troubled. "I want a word with you, presently," he said to Jem; but he consented to take tea first with the ladies.
Then the two gentlemen retired to the study, and Jean sped away to the Park.
[CHAPTER II.]
THE "SPANISH GIPSY."
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.
• • • • •
"Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more."
SHAKESPEARE.
JEAN'S estimate of Evelyn Villiers as one who "had always a pet worry," was not far wrong—indeed, such a statement might perhaps be made of nine out of every ten individuals, then or now—yet it was an estimate with two sides. Almost everything has two sides, if it possesses a side at all; and here was no exception.
The distinctive characteristic of Evelyn's case lay, not so much in the possession of a worry, or a succession of worries, as in the fact of rather too much leisure for looking at those worries; perhaps too in the absence of a spirit which should lift her above them. Life hitherto had been too soft and shielded for the richer development of Evelyn's character. She was like a plant, by nature hardy, which would flourish on the border of Alpine snow, but which grows pale and sickly in the vitiated air of a hothouse.