“And Lady Catherine?”
“Is Lady Catherine still, nothing more.”
“But her son?”
“Oh,” replied Chaleco, with a hoarse laugh, “he is the pitiful dangler to a woman’s apron strings that he ever was.”
My blood rose, I could not endure to hear the man I had loved so deeply thus spoken of.
“Hush!” I said, looking at Cora, anxious to save her feelings rather than my own, “Irving does not deserve this; he is no idler, whatever you may think.”
I had expected to see Cora angry, as I had been, by this scornful mention of her lover, but she lay perfectly still, unimpressed and listless, without a flush or a glance to prove the wounded feelings that were torture to me. This indifference, so unlike her usual impulsiveness, surprised us both. But for her paleness and the blue shadows under her great eyes, we could not have guessed how much she had suffered since our departure from Scotland. No sick child ever resigned itself more passively to a mother’s arms than she had yielded herself to us, and no child ever pined and wasted away as she did. All her bloom was gone. Cold and delicate as wax was the hue of her countenance. The azure shadows I have spoken of, and the veins threading her temples, gave the only tinge of color visible in a face rosy as the dawn only a few weeks before.
She did not seem to hear us, though this was the first time we had mentioned her lover’s name when she was by. Even Chaleco seemed to feel compassion for the poor child, and dropped his voice, drawing closer to me.
“She does not heed,” he said, “but still it seems like hurting her when we speak of that young villain.”
“Then do not speak of him,” I rejoined, sharply; “where is the necessity?”