Lord Florencecourt shivered, and looked at the windows as he got up and walked away, so little himself that he began trying to smoke a cigar he had not lighted.
It was then that by an inspiration an explanation of his late extraordinary conduct occurred to Lauriston.
“Wonder if he’s going off his head!” he thought with sorrowful concern. “And it’s taking the form of antipathy to women. First Nouna; then Sundran; last of all this Chloris White! Poor old chap! Poor dear old chap! that comes of marrying Lady Florencecourt; or perhaps his marriage was the first sign of it.”
And George, trying in vain to account in any other way for the strange behaviour of his friend, went home to renewed raptures over his own happier choice.
CHAPTER XVIII.
George Lauriston’s gloomy forebodings at the entire change in their manner of life brought about by Nouna’s becoming a comparatively rich woman, were not, in the first few weeks at least, fulfilled. The new way of living pleased the volatile child-woman much better than the old; and as she was never happy or miserable by halves, her joy in her good fortune was so strong as to be infectious; it was impossible to live in the neighbourhood of her full sensuous delight in existence without catching some of its radiance; and George, while ashamed of the weakness which made him take the colour of his life from hers, when he had meant in the most orthodox way to make her tastes and feelings accord with his own, found a fierce and ever-strengthening pleasure in the intoxicating love-draughts his passion afforded him, until his ambition, which perhaps had been none of the highest, began to sleep, and thought and principle to grow languid under the enervating influence of the question: What good in heaven or earth is worth the striving for, when this, the most absorbing soul or sense can imagine, is close to my hand, at my lips? And so, as in all encounters of the affections, the greater love was at the mercy of the less; and George, telling himself that time and experience would develop in her all those other qualities which his own efforts had failed to draw out, but which, being part of his conception of the ideal woman, must lie dormant somewhere in the queen of his heart, gave himself up to adoration of those excellences in her which had been already demonstrated; and they lived through those hot summer weeks in happiness, which caused the one first awake in the morning to touch the other softly, doubtingly, to make sure that their life of dream-like joy was a reality still.
George had had, of course, to indulge the cravings of Nouna’s sociability, and to submit to the entertaining of visitors, and to the establishment of an institution which in its beginnings rather shocked him. Nouna, finding that the social day began late, readily understood that this necessitated “stealing a few hours from the night,” and she accordingly encouraged such of her husband’s friends as met with her approval, to “come and smoke a cigar with George after dinner.” As this invitation was invariably accepted, and as the entertainment always included a perfectly served little supper, under the famous golden silk ceiling, Mrs. Lauriston’s “midnight parties” soon began to be talked about, and to afford a nice little scandal to be worried by all the women who were jealous of the little lady’s rapid and surprising success. Even when with August the dead season sets in, there are always men detained in town by business or caprice, and Nouna found no falling off in attendance at these receptions, so consonant with masculine tastes and habits, and there was a general outcry of aggrieved bachelordom—bachelordom in its wide sense, including those who had attained a more complete form of existence, but still wallowed in the unworthy habits of the less honourable state—when the time came for Mr. and Mrs. Lauriston to start for Norfolk.
Lord Florencecourt, who was already at Willingham, had asked George, with an assumed carelessness which the latter was too well-informed to misinterpret, whether they intended to take “that hideous black woman,” whose ugliness, he declared, had nearly made the rest of his hair turn white the only time he saw her, with them to Norfolk. George said no, but he was not sorry when, later, Nouna insisted upon Sundran’s accompanying them, as he had a lurking wish to see what the effect would be if the woman were to confront the Colonel. Nouna had scoffed at the notion of his being insane, and on learning that his marriage might possibly have had an effect on his mind, she expressed great curiosity to see this formidable wife.
George laughed rather mischievously.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to forego that pleasure, Nouna,” he said, shaking his head. “I heard from Ella Millard the other day that Lady Florencecourt is so much shocked by what she has heard about you and your wicked heathen ways, that she has quarrelled with her brother, Sir Henry, about their invitation to you, and has refused to visit them while you are at the Lodge!”