"Of what were you thinking, James?" she said almost abruptly, for a superstitious thought forced the question to her lips almost against her will.
"I was thinking," said the man, resting his head against the oak carvings of his chair, "I was thinking of a time when we were all in the south of Spain."
"Of your mother's death?" inquired the lady in a low voice. "It was a mournful event to remember. What is there in this soft twilight to remind us both of the same thing, for I was thinking of that time also!"
"Of my mother's death?" inquired the gentleman, lifting his eyes to her face suddenly, almost sternly. "I was not thinking of that, but of my father's marriage."
The lady did not speak, but her face grew pale, and over it swept a smile so vivid with surprise, so eloquent of mournfulness, that she seemed transfigured. Her hand dropped away from the chair, and walking back to the window she sat down, uttering a faint sigh, as if some slumbering pain had been sharpened into anguish by the few words that had been spoken. Twenty years had she lived in the house with James Harrington, and never before had the subject of her marriage with his father been mentioned between them, save as it arose in the discussion of household events.
Her marriage with his father, that was the subject of his gloomy thoughts. Had she then failed to render him content in his home? Had she in anything fallen short of those gentle duties he had received so gratefully from the mother that was gone? Why was it that thoughts of Spain and of events that had transpired there, should have seized upon them both at the same time?
She arose again, pale and with a tremor of the limbs. The balmy air grew sickening to her—his presence an oppression. For the first time she began to doubt if she were not an object of dislike to her husband's guest. He saw her pass from the room without turning a glance that way, and followed her with a look of self-reproach. He felt pained and humiliated. After a silence of so many years, why had he dared to utter words to that woman—his best friend—which could never be explained? Had all manhood forsaken him? Had he sunk to be a common-place carper in the household which she had invested with so much beautiful happiness? Stung with these thoughts he arose and sought the open air also.
CHAPTER II.
OLD MR. HARRINGTON.
An old man sat in a room above the one just deserted by its inmates. He was watching the sunset also, with unusual interest, not because it brought back loving or sad memories, but with an admiration of the sense alone. With tastes cultivated to their extremest capacity, and a philosophy of happiness essentially material, this old man permitted no hour to pass by without gleaning some sensual enjoyment from it, that a less egotistical person might never have discovered. An epicure in all things, he had attained to a sort of self-worship, which would have been sublime if applied to the First Cause of all that is beautiful. His splendid person was held in reverence, not because it was made in the image of his God, but for the powers of enjoyment it possessed—for the symmetry it displayed, and the defiance which it had so long given to the inroads of time.