“You are being starved after your walk. I have been waiting for my opportunity to bring you something.” His eyes smiling steadily, as if over the new bond they had found, said to her, “You don’t like your aunt—nor do I. You are out of your milieu here. Nobody here is capable of appreciating you; but I appreciate you.” The smile was so infinitely more delicate than any such words that it flattered no vanity in her, only made her happy afresh in that new reliance on an almost comrade.
As Maurice joined her, Mr. Geoffrey Daunt’s head turned towards them, and he looked at the young lady in white under the palm tree, looked as though she had been another but more interesting palm-tree. He received a more perturbing impression than his imperturbable glance implied. He was displeased that Maurice should not be sitting beside Lady Angela, and displeased that the girl beside whom he was sitting should be so freshly young and pretty; and this dissatisfaction worked in him until he presently got up and went across the room to Lady Angela, interrupting her tête-à-tête with such an air of evident purpose that Mr. Jones arose and wandered away.
Daunt dropped into the vacant seat. “What have you been doing this afternoon?” he asked.
From his new position he could directly survey Felicia and Maurice; his eyes were upon them as he spoke.
“Writing to my friends,” Angela answered in a soft voice. She was a great correspondent, and it was quite understood by their fortunate recipients that her letters were to be preserved; future publication was a probability; Angela looked upon herself as destined to influence her time, after as well as before her death, and her friends were of the same opinion.
That Geoffrey Daunt, however, did not share this conviction of her significance was shown by his next placid question, “What about?”—quite implying that an alternative of souls or satin was equally interesting to him.
Angela had long ago told herself that she must not expect to be understood by this worldly relative. It was with the mildness of an intelligent forbearance that, as softly as before, she answered, “About how I feel life—theirs and mine.”
“You feel a good many things about it—don’t you?” Geoffrey smiled, though not mockingly, indeed, with a cool kindness. Both smile and kindness were keenly offensive to Angela, but with greater mildness, “I believe in feeling,” she returned.
“You and Maurice are alike in that.”
“Yes; with a difference; Maurice is a subjectivist; his feeling is an end; mine is a means.”