Christian hardly heard what she said. She was standing at the open window, in the stillness that tells of intense mental engrossment. Self-deception was impossible for her; her mind was too acute for tolerance of subterfuge; and for her, also, away and beyond the merciless findings of intellect was the besetment of presentiment, intuition, inward convictions that can override logical conclusions, words that are breathed in the soul as by a wind, and, like the wind, are born and die in mystery.
The last of the daylight had gone; there was a touch of frost; the sky was clear and hard, the stars shone with sharp brilliance, some of them had long, slanting rays on either hand that looked like wings of light; a new moon glittered among them, keen and clean, and vindictive as a scimitar; in the quiet, the low murmur of the Broadwater pervaded the night. Judith watched her sister with unconsciously appraising eyes, noting the straight slenderness of her figure, the small, high-held, dark head.
"Old people are intolerable!" she thought; "she shall not sacrifice herself to Papa's prejudices! If she likes Larry she shall have him!"
But she was too wise to argue with Christian.
Dick Talbot-Lowry, though now arrived at the age of sixty-nine, was as unconvinced as ever of the fact that time had got the better of him, and that its despotism was daily deepening. He admitted that he had become something of an invalid, but that his elder daughter should have classified him as an old person would have appeared to him as absurd and offensive. There are minds that keep this inveterate youthfulness; that learn nothing of age, and forget nothing of youth. It is an attitude sometimes charming, sometimes undignified, always pathetic. Christian saw old age as a tragedy, a disaster, to alleviate which no effort on the part of the young could be too great; the pathos and the pity of it were ever before her eyes. In contest with her father, if contest there were to be, she would go into the arena with her right hand tied behind her back.
Without any definite admission of failure, Major Talbot-Lowry had been brought to submit to having his breakfast in bed, and Robert Evans, a sour and withered Ganymede, was the bearer of it. He was also the bearer of any gossip that might be available, and seldom failed to provide his master with a stimulant and irritant. On the morning following on Christian's return it was very evident that intelligence of unusual greatness seethed in the cauldron wherein fermented Mr. Evans' brew of news. His rook-like eye sparkled, his movements, even that walk for whose disabilities it may be remembered that the pantry boy had thanked his God, were alert and purposeful.
"Ye didn't see the Irish Times yet, I think?" he began, standing over his master, and looking down upon him with an expression as triumphant and malign as that of a carrion-crow with a piece of stolen meat. He rarely bestowed the usual honorifics upon Dick, considering that his five years' seniority relieved him of such obligations. "I wouldn't believe all I'd read in the papers, but this is true, anyway!"
"What's true?" said Major Dick, irritably; "you've forgotten the salt again, Evans! How the devil can I eat an egg without salt? Send one of the maids for it—don't go yourself," he added, as Evans left the room. "The old fool'd be all day getting it," he said to himself, with an old man's contempt for old age in another. "Now, then," as Evans returned, "what's your wonderful bit of news?"
"Ye can read it there for yourself," replied Evans, coldly; he was ruffled by the episode of the salt.
"Damn it, man, I can't read the paper and eat an egg!" snapped the Major. "Out with your lie, whatever it is!"