Charles Yeldham's thoughts were of a very different kind. Here was this simple girl, of whose existence he had scarcely known a few days ago, now exercising influence over the future fate of three--no, of two men: as for himself--bah! the chambers and the pleadings, the hard work which was to make up little Clare's dowry,--that was his fate, and there was an end of it so far as he was concerned. But Gordon? Poor Gordon, who had gone off full of life and hope to urge upon his father the necessity of "doing something for him," actuated thereto solely by the hope of propitiating Mr. Guyon by being able to show himself in a position to ask for Katharine's hand; poor Gordon, who was at that moment doubtless promising and vowing all sorts of things in his own name to his father, and who, if he succeeded in getting promise of an appointment, would write off triumphantly in prosecution of his suit, or who, if he failed, would come back to town and try and pursue it without the necessary qualification, but who in either case would have a cold shoulder turned upon him and the door shut in his face so soon as a suitor of Streightley's calibre was known to have entered the lists. "I hope to make her my wife." Those were Robert Streightley's words; and from them Yeldham could not gather whether or not the final question had been asked; but be that as it might, he knew sufficiently of Mr. Guyon to feel certain that Gordon's hopes were destined to suffer utter wreck. Would not the girl herself be true to the--to the what? What could this poor lad adduce in support of the flame which he had nourished but the ordinary flirtation-phrases indulged in night after night in hundreds of London ball-rooms? How could he (Yeldham) tell whether Katharine loved Gordon or not? He had no clearer indication than the readiness of a joyous, enthusiastic, rather trivial nature to believe in the existence of what it hoped and desired; he shrunk from the idea of the lad's disappointment, but, after all, he knew Gordon Frere too well to suppose that he would be unlike the remainder of mankind, that he would not get over it in time--in perhaps no very long time. Had it been himself now,--had he loved Katharine Guyon and another came to win her from him by his superior wealth--but he would not pursue so futile a thought as that,--he had nothing to do with love. Hard work, and not the indulgence of fancy, was his lot; and he was content. He wished it was over though, and that Gordon knew the worst.
These and many other thoughts resembling them chased each other through Yeldham's brain, and rendered it difficult to him to keep up even the desultory conversation for which only Streightley was disposed. The friends parted at the railway station, and Yeldham betook himself at once to his chambers. It was a still, hot evening, and the airlessness of the rooms oppressed him. He was a man little influenced by such things ordinarily; yet this evening the grim cheerlessness, the dust, the ungentle disarray, in whose disorderliness there was a kind of order, of which he held the key; the harsh bundles of papers, the very fittings of the rooms, in which all was scrupulously designed for use, and as devoid of ornament as only true British business upholstery knows how to be,--all these things made themselves suddenly apparent. He revolted against them, against his life in general. It suddenly seemed alike hard and useless: what was he grinding away like this for? supposing his object accomplished, cui bono? An unwholesome frame of mind to be betrayed into, even for a little while--a relaxation, a renunciation of the great principle of duty which had upheld and guided him so long; and Charles Yeldham knew that it was so, and felt afraid of himself. He shrank from the first insidious chill of the advancing tide of discontent; he recognised the deadliness of it.
"Yes, that's it," he said thoughtfully, when, having emptied his letter-box, and looked over the memoranda left for his inspection by his clerk, he sat moodily by the open window, through which faint sounds from the river reached his ears: "Yes, that's it. I have seen a fine place to-day, and talked with a rich man--a man who hardly knows how rich he really is, I fancy--about what he is to do with his money; and I suppose I am actually envious, cut up by the sight of something desirable that never can be mine. He is going to invest in happiness, is he?--to buy a beautiful idol, and set her up in a splendid shrine? he's rich enough to do it, if he likes. I wonder how it is really. I wonder whether he will be as happy as he believes. But no--I don't wonder any thing of the kind, of course; no one ever was or will be, since life is limited, and faith is infinite. It's a dull business, I fancy, even at the best--as dull perhaps as it is to me, who am so very far off the best."
And then Charles Yeldham rose, shook off the unusual and perilous mood which had held him already too long, and sat down resolutely to his work. It was very late that night when he went to bed; and sleep kept away from him in a harassing manner. The events of the day reproduced themselves in his thoughts, which escaped his control, and dragged him in their course. The strange imbroglio in which he found himself engaged; the clashing interests of two friends, in whom he was greatly though not equally interested; the certain crash of the hopes and projects of one of them; his uncertainty of the extent to which Streightley had received encouragement, but which his knowledge of Robert's real diffidence of character and unconsciousness of his own value in the eyes of a scheming and mercenary society, induced him to believe must have been considerable; his doubts as to the course he ought to pursue towards Gordon;--no wonder he could not sleep while these conflicting thoughts battled with each other in his mind.
The practical result of his cogitations was, that Charles Yeldham decided on postponing any communication with Frere until his return. Gordon was not likely to write to him--he hated letter-writing rather more than he hated any other kind of mental exertion; and whether his application to his father might have good results or not, he would no doubt return without delay. On the other perplexing question--had Streightley proposed to Miss Guyon?--Yeldham ardently desired information; but for the present there was no means of attaining it within his reach. He must wait like the others--only not like them in this, that he did not wait and hope. He was only an outsider, an inconsiderable person, the recipient of half-confidence on one side, the confidant of baseless hopes, as he feared, upon the other; while to one principally concerned he was nothing. No conjuncture of affairs could make him an object of importance in the life of the proud beautiful girl, whose fair face came between him and every thing on which he strove to fix his attention; the only woman's face which had ever charmed Charles Yeldham.
Hester Gould had seen a good deal of her friends at Hampstead since the evening on which she had made so favourable an impression on Mr. Daniel Thacker. She had accompanied her dear Rachel and Rebecca to the Botanical promenade, whither they had repaired arrayed in much splendour, and with the gorgeousness of colouring and richness of material affected by their nation. Mr. Thacker had joined the party, and had exerted himself to the utmost to be agreeable to Miss Gould, whom he admired more than ever, when he contrasted the taste and propriety of her dress with the splendid array of his sisters, from which he shrunk with dismay. As it suited Hester's plans for obtaining information that Daniel Thacker should succeed in these efforts, he did succeed, and she had enjoyed an opportunity of observing Miss Guyon closely and attentively, during her animated conversation with Gordon Frere, and also during her father's empressé introduction of Streightley to her notice. She had decided, with characteristic readiness, on entering the grounds, that she would tell Thacker that she wished to see Miss Guyon; and she had done so. Mr. Thacker had entertained a distinct purpose of business, in addition to that of pleasure, in coming to the fête; and it was a source of conscientious gratification to him that he found himself enabled to serve both. He had been informed by Mr. Guyon that Streightley would be there, and he resolved to see for himself how that gentleman stood with Miss Guyon. Thus he and Hester were each bent upon a similar object. There was, however, one material difference between their modes of pursuing it. Mr. Thacker did not begin to watch Katharine until Streightley joined her. Hester Gould watched her from the first moment she distinguished her figure amid the gay group, which was one of the most conspicuous in the gardens. She watched her, not with the jealous gaze of an angry woman watching a dangerous rival, but with unclouded, unprejudiced senses, with close admiring attention, and the keen perception of a woman gifted with intuitive knowledge of the world, a cool temper, and unusual discretion. She had seen expectation and pleasure in every line of Miss Guyon's expressive face, as Gordon joined her; she had marked the heightened colour, the brightened eye, as they passed and repassed each other; she had heard the note of irrepressible gladness in the sweet musical voice; and Hester Gould knew that Katharine Guyon loved the fair-haired young man, in whose air and figure she recognised the ease and self-possession, the simplicity and frankness, which made Gordon so attractive, as well as the girl who was giving herself up to all the unrestrained happiness of young love knew it. Hester did not ask her companion who Gordon Frere was; she did not attract his attention to the young gentleman at all; on the contrary, she engrossed it so completely, that when she said quietly, "There is Ellen Streightley's brother talking to your friend's daughter now, Mr. Thacker," Daniel looked round with a start, and felt that he had almost forgotten the business part of his purpose.
A bow of recognition had passed between Mr. Guyon and Mr. Daniel Thacker, but Robert Streightley had not seen Miss Gould. It had not been her intention that he should see her; her purpose was to observe him closely, and she had effected it. She was no more mistaken in her estimate of his sentiments than in that of Katharine's; and it vas characteristic of her that, though her observations changed a vague surmise into a positive certainty, a threatening risk into a certain present danger, she betrayed not a sign of uneasiness or discouragement. Neither her colour nor her countenance changed, though she saw before her eyes the overthrow of a scheme cherished long and deeply--though she could only calculate the chances in her favour by a vague speculation on the possible fortune and position of the young man she had seen with Katharine; or, supposing he had neither, on Katharine's strength of determination in opposition to her father. It was also characteristic of Hester Gould that, though she had determined to marry Streightley without permitting herself to love him, she told herself that night that she felt a degree of dislike to Katharine Guyon, which might, if she did not take care, grow into hatred.
"She is my unconscious and involuntary rival," said the strange woman, whose candour towards herself was never laid aside, "and I must not hate her; for hatred is troublesome--a passion--and I will never put myself under the tyranny of a passion."
Hester Gould was at the Brixton Villa when Robert returned from his visit to Middlemeads. Mrs. Streightley and his sister were aware that he had gone into the country, but they knew no more. When he examined the letters sent by his orders from the City, he found among them one from Mr. Guyon, requesting him, if possible, to call on him on the following day, leaving the hour to his selection, but urging his attention to the request. The letter was a dainty missive, with a fine coloured monogram on the seal, and expressing in its appearance as wide a difference between itself and Robert's ordinary correspondence as it was in the power of stationery to convey. Ellen Streightley was one of those young ladies blessed with a taste for simple pleasures, and who rated the possession of crests and monograms very high among them. Accordingly she exclaimed,
"O Robert, that's something in my line. Do let me have it!"