[CHAPTER XXXIV]
THE LINES OF LIFE
The glorious frost lasted a glorious week, generous measure for an English frost, and long enough for Arthur to make considerable improvement in the art of skating; since Margaret maintained her attitude of not caring about it, he had the benefit of the professor's undivided attention. Long enough too it lasted for the new vision to stamp itself deep on his mind. For companion picture he recalled from memory another, which at the outset had made no such vivid impression—Judith crying over the failure of the farce. His mind had passed it by lightly when it was first presented to him; it had not availed to turn his amused thoughts from Miss Ayesha Layard and her medicine. It came back now, at first by what seemed only a chance or freak of memory, but presently establishing for itself a relation with its sister-vision of triumphant grace. Between them they gave to Judith in his eyes something that he had not discerned before—something which had always been there, though not in such full measure in the earlier days of their acquaintance, before disaster and grief, and love and sympathy, had wrought upon her spirit. He saw her now—he was idealising again, no doubt, to some degree, after that generous fashion of his which no cold steel of experience could quite eradicate—as capable of the depths and heights of emotion; no longer as tethered too tight by reason and good sense, somewhat too critical, a trifle too humdrum in her notions—that was the conception of her which he had in the days of Bernadette's reign. The solid merits of that type he left to her still; and in this he was indeed on the firm ground of experience; he had tried and tested them. But now he decked them with bright ornaments and blended their sober useful tints with richer colouring—with tenderness of heart, a high brave joy in life, the grace of form and charm of face in which the eye delights.
Subtly and delightfully sure of his changed vision of her, she dared now to be wholly herself with him, to maintain no shy reserves where prudence held pleasure in bondage, and affection took refuge from the fear of indifference. She borrowed of him too, though this unconsciously, in an instinct to adapt herself to him. As she had lent to him from her stores of fortitude and clear-sightedness, she levied toll for herself on his wealth of persistent and elastic cheerfulness, his gust for life and all that life brings with it.
Yet her old self was not eclipsed nor wholly transformed. Her caution remained, and her healthy distrust of sudden impulses. The satiric smile was still on her lips, to check transports and cool the glow of fascination. She had been so wont to think him Bernadette's man—whether in joy or in delusion, or in the cruel shock of sudden enlightenment—so wont to think Bernadette invincible, that even Bernadette's memory seemed a thing that could hardly be displaced. She craved a probation, a searching test both of her own feelings and of Arthur's. She feared while she enjoyed, and of set purpose nursed her doubts. There was not always skating—not always bright sun, keen air, and the rapture of motion, incentives to hot blood. If he deluded himself, she would have compassion ready and friendship for him unimpaired; but if she, with open eyes, walked into a trap, her judgment of herself would be bitter, and friendship would scarcely stand against the shame.
Arthur went back to town ten days before the Christmas vacation ended, to look after his work and, incidentally, to attend Marie Sarradet's wedding. He left Hilsey cheerfully, with no real sense of a parting or of separation. He was still keen and excited about his work, about the life that seemed now to lie before him in the law, and Hilsey—with all it meant to him—figured no longer as a distraction from that life, or even an enemy to it, but rather as its background and complement, so much a part of it as to seem with him while he worked. And so it was with Judith herself—the new Judith of the new vision. She was no enemy to work either. However bedecked and glorified, she was still Judith of the cool head and humorous eyes, the foe of extravagance and vain conceits.
"Back to my dog!" he said gaily. "Holding on to his tail, I'll climb the heights of fortune! And I hope one or two more will find their way to chambers—some little puppies, at all events."
"Ambition is awake! I seem to see a dawning likeness to Mr. Norton Ward."
"I seem to see, as in a golden dream, enough to pay his rent, confound him!"
"I discern, as it were from afar off, a silk gown gracefully hanging about your person!"