CHAPTER XIX.
... This life’s end, and this love-bliss have been lost here. Doubt you whether
This she felt, as looking at me, mine and her souls rushed together?
Browning: Christina.
Esther sat a little apart, watching the lovers.
“Does she think he is a cardboard man to play with, or an umbrella to take shelter under?” she reflected. “A lover may be a shadowy creature, but husbands are made of flesh and blood. Doesn’t she see already that he is as obstinate as a mule, and as whimsical as a goat?”
And she repeated the phrase to herself well pleased with it.
It was Sunday, the day following that of the election. A great family party had dined in Kensington Palace Gardens, and now were awaiting Reuben in the primrose-coloured drawing-room.
Judith, side by side with Bertie, was listening amiably to a fluent account of his adventures in Asia Minor, in which he dwelt a great deal on his state of mind and state of health at the time; while Rose played scraps of music for the benefit of Jack Quixano, who had a taste for comic opera.
Judith was in such a state of tension as scarcely to be conscious of pain. Her duties as fiancée were clearly marked out; anything was better than those days of chaos, of upheaval, which had preceded her engagement.
Esther’s favourite phrase, that marriage was an opiate, had occurred to her more than once during the past week.
“I sat up all night long, and read every word of it. I was determined to make up my mind once for all,” Bertie was saying.