She would almost as soon have heard that he was going to die. Indeed, death would not more completely remove him for her, would not set up a more surmountable barrier between them than a marriage. For if he were to die, she could still think and dream of him as hers; whereas, if he married, he would belong in this world and the next to another woman.
And such a woman! Finetta had spoken of this Leslie Lisle as if she were an uncultivated, half-educated country girl.
Lady Eleanor could imagine what she was like; some simpering, round-faced girl, just a step above a laborer's daughter. One of these girls who blushed with timidity and fright when they were spoken to, who spoke in a strong provincial dialect, who dressed like a dowdy and looked just respectable; something between a servant and a shop girl.
She was pretty, no doubt; but to think that Yorke, Yorke the fastidious, should be caught by a pretty face! Why, she, Lady Eleanor, was pretty! She looked at her pale, agitated face, and a kind of indignant rage consumed her for a moment. She was the acknowledged belle of many a ballroom. She might have been a professional beauty if she had cared to be one. She was accomplished, was in his own rank and class, a fitting mate—yes, she told herself with inward conviction, a fitting mate for him.
With her by his side, as his wife, he could have filled a conspicuous place in the world, their world, the upper ten thousand, the rulers and masters.
And he had passed her by and was going to marry a half-educated, uncivilized, uncultivated country girl, with pink cheeks and a simpering smile.
The thought drove her half mad. Finetta had said that she had tried to prevent it, and that it now rested with her, Lady Eleanor, to make an attempt.
Lady Eleanor shuddered and reddened with shame at the idea of being a conspirator with such a one as Finetta of the Diadem. And yet was not the object to be attained worthy of even such means?
She would not ask herself why Finetta desired to stop the marriage; she put that question away from her resolutely, and told herself that it was of Yorke and Yorke's welfare alone that she was thinking.
A servant came up to announce visitors, but Lady Eleanor answered through the locked door that she wasn't at home.