"Most things, thank heaven, or where should we be?"
"Tom Courtland, for instance?"
"Oh, not any longer, I'm afraid."
"It won't do for the big things and the desperate cases; not even for other people's—much less for your own."
"I suppose not. If you want it always, you must be a looker-on; and you'll tell me husbands can't be lookers-on at their own marriages?"
"I tell you! Facts will convince you sooner than I could, Grantley."
He was really very reasonable from his own point of view, both reasonable and patient. Mrs. Raymore conceded that. And he was also quite consistent in his point of view. She remembered a phrase from his letter which had defined what he was seeking—"a completion, not a transformation." He was pursuing that scheme still—a scheme into which the future wife had fitted so easily and perfectly, into which the actual wife fitted with more difficulty. But he was dealing with the difficulty in a very good spirit and a very good temper. If the scheme were possible at all—given Sibylla as she was—he was quite the man to put it through successfully. But she reserved her opinion as to its possibility. The reservation did not imply an approval of Sibylla or any particular inclination to champion her; it marked only a growing understanding of what Sibylla was, a growing doubt as to what she could be persuaded or moulded into becoming. Mrs. Raymore had no prejudices in her favour.
And at any rate he was still her lover, as fully, as ardently as ever. Deep in those fastnesses of his nature were his love for her, and his pride in her and in having her for his own. The two things grew side by side, their roots intertangled. Every glance of admiration she won, every murmur of approval she created, gave him joy and seemed to give him tribute. He eagerly gathered in the envy of the world as food for his own exultation; he laughed in pleasure when Christine Fanshaw told him to look and see how Walter Blake adored Sibylla.
"Of course he does—he's a sensible young fellow," said Grantley gaily. "So am I, Christine, and I adore her too."
"The captive of your bow and spear!" Christine sneered.