“Ah!” she murmured, “there is nothing invites me but the peace of the cloister. To escape from the turmoil and the menace—to know no interest of love or fortune in the company of God’s dear prisoners!”
Perhaps she only quoted from the commonplace book of mère adoptive. At least the picture she conjured up seemed so real as to fetch a little sob from her. Ned’s heart was rent by the sound.
“My dear,” he said simply, “I would not persuade you against your conscience. God knows, in any bargain between us I should be the only gainer. I have nothing to offer you that is worth the offer but my love, dear. That is for you, in stress or sunshine, whenever you care to whistle for it. Now I will say no more; but I will cross the channel, at the very bidding of madame la comtesse, and pave the way as I can for your return. And I shall carry hope with me, Pamela. It is the beggar’s scrip; and what am I but a beggar!”
For the first time he forgot the little red heels that were still in his pocket. They were often to prove a sharp reminder of themselves, however.
Did the girl read his figurative speech in a too literal sense? Let us hope she was never influenced by a consideration so worldly. She held out her hand to him. Her blue eyes swam with tears.
“Perhaps, in happier times to come,” she said—and so they parted.
CHAPTER V.
Twice again only, before he started for the Continent—as he persisted in thinking at her sole behest—was Ned vouchsafed the partial company of his mistress. In each instance he must forego the desire of his heart for a personal interview. Such, by accident or design, was denied him. But he had the satisfaction of being received by madame with an ease and a familiarity that were significant of a quite particular confidence.
On the first occasion he happened upon the ladies out walking in a country lane. They were botanising, under the tutorship of a Bœotian new to him—a thin, clerical-looking individual, with a little head, appropriately like an anther. The house at Bury was, indeed, a perfect surprise-tub for the uncommon personalities it seemed to have an endless capacity for turning out. Its staff was, perhaps, twenty all told; yet this number, in view of its omniferous faculties, would often appear as self-reproductive as a stage dozen of soldiers walking itself round a rock into a company.
Madame, who was engaged in “receiving” from monsieur her stick-in-waiting the names of débutantes hedge-flowers presented to her, waved a gracious end to the ceremony, and, greeting my lord as if he were a dear friend, invited him to pace beside her.