"So Frere was there?" said the indomitable Mr. Guyon, as airily and pleasantly as if he were mentioning the most agreeable trifle. "Rather awkward, on the whole; and yet, I don't know--all for the best perhaps. He will probably marry well, and the sooner the better for him and for us."
"For us?" asked Robert timidly. And there was a shade of pain, and something like shame on his face, which would have hurt a sensitive observer, but which merely annoyed Mr. Guyon, who found it difficult to repress a sneer, as he replied:
"And us, of course--that is, if we need care about the matter one way or the other, which I don't see that we need."
"But if Katharine should have any conversation, any confidence with him?" faltered Robert.
"There is not the faintest possibility of any such danger," said Mr. Guyon, with equal composure and decision. "I understand Katharine much better than you do, Robert, and I know that our invulnerable safety"--the younger man flushed and winced a little at the words--"consists in her indomitable pride. The one individual of all her acquaintance who will never exchange a confidential sentence with Katharine is Mr. Gordon Frere." And then Mr. Guyon promptly dropped the subject, and talked of money, racing, betting, and other serious pursuits of life; and after a short time took his leave of Robert, leaving him reassured, but with a fresh and bitter sense of humiliation.
The time which had wrought so rapid a change in Gordon Frere, which had taught him to regard with forgiveness, which almost bordered on approbation, the fickleness and treachery of the woman against whom he had delivered the valedictory philippic,--which Charles Yeldham remembered with wonder and bewilderment,--had worked considerable alteration in Katharine's mood as well. Her fine nature had been hardened, her generous temper had been warped; a crust of worldliness and selfishness had formed over the hot heart, and the trustful impulses of youth were dead within her; but the maddening anger, the intolerable mortification, had subsided. A momentary thrill of these former emotions, mingled with the yearning of the heart towards the object of a passion, or even a fancy, had passed over her, when, in the crush and whirl of the ball-room, she had recognised Frere. But her strength of will and self-command had effectually put it down before the moment came when she found herself obliged to speak to him.
Something like the tumult of the past renewed itself in her mind when she found herself alone that night, and at liberty to think of the occurrences of that evening; but it did not last. Mr. Guyon was right. Any calculation founded on Katharine's pride could not fail; and that pride helped her in the very first hour of the resuscitation of the past. Believing as she did that there never had been any sincerity in the sentiment which Gordon Frere had affected towards her, she did not recognise change in the gay and unembarrassed manner which she had immediately observed; she imputed it to the discarding of the mask, the abandonment of the comedy; and so thinking, she wondered that she felt so little anger, so little disdain, so little emotion of any kind, all things considered. She recalled to memory every circumstance of that terrible day which had undeceived her; she recollected it, hour by hour, in its anguish of suspense, in its paroxysms of grief and anger; she remembered the faint deadly sickness which had come over her, and the dreadful despairing hours of the night. But she only remembered these things; she did not feel them again; and Katharine knew that with the last throbs of anger had passed away the last lingerings of her love for Gordon Frere. It had been real, very true, and fervent; and no doubt, had he returned it, as he had taught her to believe he did, it would have lasted through all the chances and changes of this mortal life; but it was dead and gone now, and the sight of him taught her that it was so. Before Katharine's eyes closed that night, after her long vigil of remembrances and reflections, she knew that she should, in all the future, meet Gordon Frere without any painful emotion, beyond a little irrepressible contempt.
She was soon put to the test; for the acquaintance between Frere and Lady Henmarsh progressed rapidly; and Katharine was not spared the sight or the mention of him. Lady Henmarsh would not have put herself out of her way to annoy Katharine, but she was not unwilling to do so when it happened to come in her way; and she took an early opportunity of confiding to her her impression that Hester Gould was decidedly smitten with the good-looking young fellow, who really had no harm in him, and whose only fault was want of money.
"He is really charming, Kate," Lady Henmarsh observed, with an air of candidly admitting a former error in judgment. "I was quite too hard on him in old times--an age ago--and I am ready to admit it. Of course that would never have done; but every thing is all right now, and I am sure you are the happiest girl in the world; and as for that dear Mr. Streightley, he is a perfect prince."
Katharine had to bear this sort of thing, and she bore it well, wondering sometimes that it did not pain her more keenly. She gave little heed to Lady Henmarsh's hints about Hester Gould, which she imputed to a general impulse of spite; and simply contented herself with smiling rather bitterly as she thought how accurately they would once have hit their mark. When she met Gordon Frere now, there was no glamour between her eyes and him. He was not invested with the golden halo of a girl's fancy. The time which had gone over Katharine's head, though brief in duration, had been long in meaning, and she was no longer the slave of her imagination. She saw him as he really was--a pleasant, kindly, genial, well-bred, well-looking, shallow young man, with brains enough and heart enough for the exigencies of society, and admirably fitted to be rich and idle, with distinction and popularity. She knew now that he was not a man who would ever accomplish any great or noble purpose in life; not a man on whom a woman's heart could stay itself in trouble. Somehow she felt that she had outgrown and outlived Gordon Frere.