‘So, Johnnie has a new admirer,’ he said. Violet was sorry that he should hear of this; but she laughed, and tried to make light of it.
‘I hear he is in Germany.’
‘Yes; with his sister and their aunt.’
‘Well,’ said Percy, ‘it may do. There will be no collision of will, and while there is one to submit, there is peace. A tigress can be generous to a puppy dog.’
‘But, indeed, I do not think it likely.’
‘If she is torturing him, that is worse.’
Violet raised her eyes pleadingly, and said, in a low, mournful tone: ‘I do not like to hear you speak so bitterly.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘it is not bitterness. That is over. I am thankful to have broken loose, and to be able to look back on it calmly, as a past delusion. Great qualities ill regulated are fearful things; and though I believe trials will in time teach her to bring her religious principle to bear on her faults, I see that it was an egregious error to think that she could be led.’
He spoke quietly, but Violet could not divest herself of the impression that there was more acute personal feeling than he was aware of. In the Ellesmere gallery, he led them to that little picture of Paul Potter’s, where the pollard willows stand up against the sunset sky, the evening sunshine gleaming on their trunks, upon the grass, and gilding the backs of the cows, while the placid old couple look on at the milking, the hooded lady shading her face with her fan.
‘There’s my notion of felicity,’ said he.