The horse was, indeed, perfectly quiet. Frothingham nodded. His habitual look of vacancy and satire had given place to earnestness and intense interest. “And does he wish you to marry?” he asked.
“Yes—he has said it, and he has written it—in one of the first letters he sent me through Mrs. Ramsay. I’ve only asked him verbally about you, and he consents and approves. I’ll take you to Mrs. Ramsay, and we’ll get his written permission.”
“But why does he consent?” asked Frothingham. “Is there no—no jealousy—there?”
“Jealousy? Impossible! Don’t you see, he can look into my soul—he knows that I am his. And all the interest he has in this gross mortal life of mine is that it shall be honourable and that I shall do my duty as a daughter and as a woman.”
Frothingham said no more. He was overwhelmed with a sense of the imminence of an unseen world—that world which had been made real to him by his nurses, bred in the legends and superstitions of England, and by his similarly trained companions at school, at the university, and ever since. It was a shock, but nothing incredible to him, this revelation of a daily and hourly commerce with that other world of which, he was certain from his own childhood experience, everyone had glimpses now and then. From time to time he looked at Cecilia, now returned to her wonted expression of abstraction. She seemed the very person to have such an experience. He was filled with awe of her; he was fascinated by her; he began to feel the first faint, vague stirrings of jealousy which he dared not express, even to himself, lest the spirit eyes of Cecilia’s lover should peer into his soul, and see, and punish.
X
AT dinner that night Willie Kennefick, who was staying in the house, began to tell his experiences in New York—he had just come from a little visit there. “The woman I took in to dinner,” said he, “gave me a solar plexus while I was busy with the oysters. She said to me, ‘I went to see such a wonderful man to-day. He told me the most astonishing things about my past and future, and he sold me a little wax image that I’m going to burn for my gout.’ ‘What!’ said I. ‘For my gout,’ said she. ‘I have to burn it slowly, and when it’s consumed my gout will be gone. I got it so cheap! Only twenty-five dollars.’”
“And what did you say, Willie?” asked Mrs. Thayer.