"Maude Creswell! What on earth should I--what--why--I mean--what, is Miss Creswell gone?"
"Simply the woman who thinks more about you than any other creature on earth. Simply the girl who is raving--head over ears in love with you. Don't pretend you don't know it. Natural instinct is too strong to allow any doubt upon that point."
"I swear you surprise me beyond belief! I swear that---- Do you mean this, Benthall?"
"As a gentleman and a Christian, I've told you what I believe; and as a man of the world, I tell you what I think, whether wittingly or unwittingly, you are very far gone in returning the young lady's sentiments!"
"I--that is--there's no doubt she is a girl of very superior mind, and--by Jove, Benthall, you've given a most singular twist to my holiday!"
[CHAPTER XXXV.]
LADY CAROLINE ADVISES ON A DELICATE SUBJECT
The communication which Mr. Benthall, in his bluff offhand manner, had made to Walter Joyce, had surprised the latter very much and embarrassed him not a little. Ever since the receipt of Marian Ashurst's letter announcing her intention of marrying Mr. Creswell--ever since the subsequent interview with Lady Caroline, in which she counselled him to discharge the subject from his mind, to encourage new hopes, and to cultivate aspirations of a different kind--Joyce had lived absolutely free from any influence of "the cruel madness of love, the poison of honey flowers, and all the measureless ill." All his thoughts had been given up to labour and ambition, and, with the exception of his deep-rooted and genuine regard for Lady Caroline, and his friendly liking for the Creswell girls, he entertained no feeling for any woman living, unless a suspicion of and an aversion to Marian Creswell might be so taken into account. Had he this special partiality for Maude Creswell, of which Benthall had spoken so plainly? He set to work to catechise himself, to look back through the events of the past few months, noting what he remembered of their relations to each other.
Yes, he had seen a great deal of Maude; he remembered very frequent occasions on which they had been thrown together. He had not noticed it at the time; it seemed to come naturally enough. Gertrude, of course, was engaged with Benthall when he was in town--in writing to him or thinking of him when he was away--and Lady Caroline had to go through all the hard work which fell upon a great lady in society--work the amount of which can only be appreciated by those who have performed it or seen it performed. So that, as Joyce then recollected, he and Maude had been thrown a great deal together, and, as he further recollected, they had had a great many discussions on topics very far removed from the mere ordinary frivolity of society talk; and he had noticed that she seemed to have clear ideas which she understood how to express. What an odd thing, that--what Benthall said--had never struck him before! It must have been patent to other people, though; and that put the matter, unpleasantly, in rather a ridiculous light. After all, though, what was there ridiculous in it? Maude was a very handsome girl, a clever girl, and an unmistakable lady. What a pretty, slight, girlish figure she had!--such a graceful outline!--her head was well posed upon her neck! And Joyce smiled as he found himself drawing lines in the air with the paper-knife which he had been idly tossing in his hand.
And he had Benthall's assurance that the girl cared for him--that was something. Benthall was a man careful in the extreme as to what he said, and he would not have made such a statement where a girl was concerned, and that girl his own sister-in-law, unless he was tolerably certain of being right. His own sister-in-law; he had it then, of course, from Gertrude, who was Maude's second self, and would know all about it. It was satisfactory to know that there was a woman in the world who cared for him, and though without the smallest particle of vanity he accepted the belief very readily, for his rejection by Marian Ashurst and the indignity which he had suffered at her hands had by no means rendered him generally cynical or suspicious of the sex. Marian Ashurst! what an age ago it seemed since the days when the mention of that name would have sent the blood flowing in his cheek, and his heart thumping audibly, and now here he was staying in the old house where all the love scenes had taken place, walking round the garden where all the soft words had been spoken, all the vows made which she had thrown to the winds when the last parting, with what he then and for so long afterwards thought its never-to-be-forgotten agony, had occurred, and he had not felt one single extra palpitation. Mrs. Creswell was staying away from Woolgreaves just then, at some inland watering-place, for the benefit of her health, which it was said had suffered somewhat from her constant attendance on her husband, or Joyce might have met her. Such a meeting would not have caused him an emotion. When he had encountered her in the lane, during the canvassing time, there was yet lingering within his breast a remembrance of the great wrong she had done him, and that was fanned into additional fury by the nature of her request and the insolence with which she made it. But all those feelings had died out now, and were he then, he thought, to come across Marian Creswell's path, she would be to him as the merest stranger, and no more.