Considering how definite his ideas were—and moderate, on the whole—it surprised him to find no one to embody them. It sometimes seemed to him that the traditional race of Englishwomen had become extinct. Those he met were either brilliant and hard, or handsome and horsey, or athletic and weedy, or smart and selfish, or pretty and silly, or sweet and provincial, or good and grotesque. With the best will in the world to fall in love, he found little or no temptation. Indeed, he had begun to think that the type of woman on whom he had set his heart was, like some article of an antiquated fashion, no longer produced when unexpectedly he saw her.
He saw her unexpectedly, because it was at church; and whatever his motives on that bright Sunday morning in May in attending the old garrison chapel in Southsea, the hope of seeing his vision realized was not one. If, apart from the reasons for which people are supposed to go to church, he had any special thought, it was that of meeting Mrs. Fane. It had happened two or three times already that, having perceived her at the service, he had joined her on the Common afterward, and she had asked him home to lunch. They had been pleasant little luncheons—so pleasant that he almost regretted the fact that she was an American. He had nothing against Americans in themselves. He knew a number of their women who had married into one arm or another of the Service with conspicuous advantage to their husbands. That, in fact, was part of the trouble. There were so many of them nowadays that he had begun to feel vaguely that where there was question of high position—and he hoped modestly that in his case there was distinctly question of that—it was time the principle was being established of England for the English. Nevertheless, he had got so far in his consideration of Drusilla Fane as to ask himself whether she was not, as the widow of a British officer, an Englishwoman to all intents and purposes as well as in the strict letter of the law. He could not say that he was in love with her; but neither could he say that one of these days he might not be. If he ever were it would certainly be on the principle of faute de mieux; but many a man has chosen his wife on no better ground than that.
Such criticism as he had to make to her disadvantage he could form there and then in the chapel while they were reading the lessons or chanting the psalms. She sat two or three rows in front of him, on the other side of the aisle. There was something about Drusilla in church that suggested a fish out of water. He had noticed it before. She was restless, inattentive; she kept turning her head to see who was behind her or at the other end of the pew; she rarely found the places in the prayer-book or knew just when to kneel down; when she did kneel down she sank into an awkward little bunch; every now and then she stifled, or did not stifle, a yawn.
Ashley had a theory that manner in church is the supreme test of the proprieties. He knew plenty of women who could charm at a dinner or dazzle at a dance, but who displayed their weaknesses at prayer. All unwitting to herself, poor Drusilla was inviting his final—or almost final—judgment on her future, so far at least as he was concerned, for the simple reason that she twitched and sighed and forgot to say the Amens.
And just then his eyes traveled to her neighbor—a tall young lady, dressed in white, with no color in her costume but a sash of hues trembling between sea-green and lilac. She was slender and graceful, with that air at once exquisite and unassuming that he had seen in the Englishwoman of his dreams. Though he could get no more than a side glimpse of her face, he divined that it was pure and that it must be thrown into relief by the heavy coil of coppery-brown hair. But what he noticed in her first was that which he thought of concerning other women last—a something holy and withdrawn, a quality of devotion without which he had no conception of real womanhood. It seemed to be a matter of high courtesy with her not to perceive that the choir-boys sang out of tune or that the sermon was prosy. In the matter of kneeling he had seen only one woman in his life—and she the highest in the land—who did it with this marvelous grace at once dignified and humble. "It takes old England," he said to himself, gloatingly, "to make 'em like that—simple and—stunning."
But on the Common after service, and at luncheon after that, and during the three or four weeks that ensued, he had much to do in reforming his opinions. There were several facts about Olivia Guion that disorientated his points of view and set him looking for new ones. Though he was not wholly successful in finding them, he managed, nevertheless, to justify himself for falling in love in violation of his principles. He admitted that he would have preferred to marry a compatriot of his own, and some one above the rank of a solicitor's daughter; but, since he had discovered the loveliest and noblest creature in the world, it was idle to cavil because one land or one situation in life rather than another had produced her. As well complain of the rubies and pearls that deck the English crown because some were found in Tibetan mountains and others in Indian seas. There are treasures, he argued, so precious as to transcend all merely national limitations, making them petty and irrelevant. The one thing to the point was that in Olivia Guion he had won the human counterpart of himself, who could reflect his qualities and complete them.
He had been so proud that the blow on receiving Olivia's letter in New York was a cruel one. Though it told him nothing but that her father had lost all his money and that the invitations to the wedding had been withdrawn, this in itself was immeasurably distressing to a man with a taste for calling public attention to his movements and who liked to see what concerned him march with a certain pomp. His marriage being an event worthy to take place in sight of the world, he had not only found ways of making it a topic of interest before leaving England, but he had summoned to it such friends of distinction as he possessed on the American side of the water. Though he had not succeeded in getting the British Ambassador, Benyon, the military attaché at Washington, was to come with his wife, and Lord Woolwich, who was aide-de-camp at Ottawa, had promised to act as best man. His humiliation on speculating as to what they must have said when they received Olivia's card announcing that the marriage was not to take place on the 28th was such that he fell to wondering whether it wouldn't have been better to bluff the loss of money. They might have carried out their plans in spite of it. Indeed he felt the feasibility of this course the more strongly after he had actually seen Olivia and she had given him the outlines of her tale.
Watching his countenance closely, she saw that he blanched. Otherwise he betrayed no sign of flinching. His manner of sitting rigid and upright in his corner of the rustic seat was a perfectly natural way of listening to a story that affected him so closely. What distressed her chiefly was the incongruity between his personality and the sordid drama in which she was inviting him to take part. He was even more distinguished-looking than he appeared in the photographs she cherished or in the vision she had retained in her memory. Without being above the medium male height, he was admirably shaped by war, sport, and exercise. His neat head, with its thick, crispy hair, in which there was already a streak of gray, was set on his shoulders at just the right poise for command. The high-bridged nose, inherited from the Umfravilles, was of the kind commonly considered to show "race." The eyes had the sharpness, and the thin-lipped mouth the inflexibility, that go with a capacity for quick decisions. While he was not so imposing in mufti as in his uniform, the trim traveling-suit of russet brown went well with the bronze tint of the complexion. It was so healthy a bronze, as a usual thing, that his present pallor was the more ashen from contrast.
Knowing from his telegram the hour at which to expect him, she had gone down the driveway to meet him when she saw him dismiss his taxicab at the gate. She chose to do this in order that their first encounter might take place out-of-doors. With the windows of the neighboring houses open and people sitting on verandas or passing up and down the road, they could exchange no more than some conventional greeting. She would assume nothing on the ground of their past standing toward each other. He seemed to acquiesce in this, since he showed no impatience at being restricted to the formality of shaking hands.