[CHAPTER VIII.]
MARRIED FOR LOVE.
Mrs. Streightley met Gordon Frere frequently during the remainder of the month of June. She met him at balls and dinner-parties, at fêtes and promenades, and riding in the Park. She was distantly civil on these occasions; and he carefully, but reluctantly, modelled his demeanour on hers. "She is so awfully stiff and standoffish," he would say to himself, when Katharine had bowed to him coldly or spoken in a tone of icy indifference; "it seems almost as if she couldn't forgive herself. I'm sure I forgive her; more than that,--by Jove! I'm very much obliged to her. We should both have been up a tree by this time if we had been married, Treasury appointment notwithstanding. What a beauty she is, though! and Streightley's not half a bad fellow either, though we used to make such fun of him. 'The City man' she called him, like a deceitful minx as she was, and she going to marry him all the time! However, I must not think of that, or I shall be getting angry again." And from this soliloquy, and from others like it, in which he indulged, it would appear that Mr. Gordon Frere's sentiments were not of the deep and lasting order, and that his friend Yeldham had formed a tolerably correct estimate of his character. He was of that constitution, and at that time of life, when a few months seem like an eternity; and he had come back to London fancy-free, and if a little wiser, a little more capable of acting from interested motives, not materially corrupted. He would not, probably, allow himself to fall in love with any woman for the future whom it would be imprudent to marry; but neither would he marry any woman, no matter how rich, whom he could not love.
Katharine's demeanour towards Gordon Frere was an unspeakable relief to Robert Streightley, whose first impulsive feeling on seeing Frere was dread of an explanation, which might lead to a discovery. His brief vision of happiness was dispelled by the sight of the young man's face, and he shrunk with a painful reluctance from the interchange of the ordinary civilities of society with one whom he had so deeply injured. In vain did he try to find relief in the remembrance of all that Katharine had gained by her marriage with him; in vain did he watch the happy insouciance, the heart-whole gaiety of Frere, and argue from them the lightness and instability of the sentiment with which he had regarded Katharine. His conscience was awake, and not any sophistry could lull it to sleep again.
Mr. Guyon had been among the earliest of Gordon Frere's former acquaintances to hear of his abandonment of diplomatic life, and his return to London. He was aware of these circumstances before he received one of cousin Hetty's confidential little notes, in which she mentioned, in a tone of alarm and judicious warning, having seen Mr. Frere at Mrs. Pendarvis's ball. Mr. Guyon had met his young friend a day before that festivity; had joked with him pleasantly about his "butterfly" qualities; had congratulated him upon his return to the centre of civilisation; and had asked him whether he had met the Streightleys,--all with a pleasant impudence which Gordon Frere was fairly forced to admire, and found it impossible to resent. Mr. Guyon was not for a moment visited by the misgivings which had disturbed his more sensitive son-in-law; but he divined that Robert, for whom he entertained, in certain respects, a good-natured contempt, would be uncomfortable about Frere's return; and he resolved to console him, at the risk of offending his pride by the momentary revival of a subject never mentioned between them. Accordingly he dropped in to breakfast at Portland Place two days after the ball and the meeting, and found, as he expected, his son-in-law alone.
"Katharine not down? Nothing wrong, I hope?" asked the affectionate parent.
"O no; she is a little tired after the Opera and a couple of parties, and she is going to Richmond to-day; so she is resting this morning."
"Indeed! very sensible of her. She stayed late at Mrs. Pendarvis's, didn't she?"
"Yes," replied Robert, shortly and uneasily.
Mr. Guyon looked at him, and their eyes met.