It is quite too much for the Æsthetic.
"I don't think you can make an inquiry about the bygone days of chivalry," she says, somewhat stiffly, and, having shaken the hand of her bewildered friend, and pecked gently at her cheek, she sails out of the room, disheartened, and wounded in spirit.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
HOW MONA REFUSES A GALLANT OFFER—AND HOW NOLLY VIEWS LIFE THROUGH THE BRANCHES OF A PORTUGAL LAUREL.
Once again they are all at the Towers. Doatie and her brother—who had returned to their own home during March and April—have now come back again to Lady Rodney, who is ever anxious to welcome these two with open arms. It is to be a last visit from Doatie as a "graceful maiden with a gentle brow," as Mary Howitt would certainly have called her, next month having been decided upon as the most fitting for transforming Dorothy Darling into Dorothy Lady Rodney. In this thought both she and her betrothed are perfectly happy.
Mona and Geoffrey have gone to their own pretty house, and are happy there as they deserve to be,—Mona proving the most charming of chatelaines, so naive, so gracious, so utterly unaffected, as to win all hearts. Indeed, there is not in the county a more popular woman than Mrs. Geoffrey Rodney.
Yet much of their time is spent at the Towers. Lady Rodney can hardly do without Mona now, the pretty sympathetic manner and comprehensive glance and gentle smile having worked their way at last, and found a home in the heart that had so determinedly hardened itself against her.
As to Jack and Violet, they have grown of late into a sort of moral puzzle that nobody can solve. For months they have been gazing at and talking to each other, have apparently seen nothing but each other, no matter how many others may be present; and yet it is evident that no understanding exists between them, and that no formal engagement has been arrived at.
"Why on earth," says Nolly, "can't they tell each other, what they have told the world long ago, that they adore each other? It is so jolly senseless, don't you know?"