“When I spoke of my own suffering, he was certainly not so much touched as he used to be,” she reflected. “On the other hand, anything connected with Kitty seems to move him more than ever. I must play Kitty against this Miss Denison.”
And, without any of the pangs of a jealous woman, Mrs. Brander, with a glance at her innocent brother-in-law, made a calm resolution as to the part she should play in what she perceived to be an incipient love affair.
CHAPTER XII.
Vernon Brander left his brother’s house that evening in a frenzy of doubt and uncertainty, such as his passionate, self-torturing nature was liable to. He had so long been bound in a dutiful and chivalrous vassalage to his sister-in-law, seeing her faults without being repelled by them, and in all things doing her reverent homage as to his early ideal, that it came upon him with a shock to discover suddenly, as he had done this evening, that she had fallen from that high place in her imagination. He tried in vain to hide from himself the fact that this change in his feelings was due to the appearance on the scene of a rival who was carrying away all before her. Mrs. Brander had, on previous occasions, scoffed at his adoration of children; she had often shown clearly how little she cared for his feelings; but never before to-night had she seemed to him cold, and hard, and selfish; never before had it occurred to him to think how lacking she was in feminine softness and charm.
Following on this discovery came the inevitable consciousness who it was that had brought about this knowledge. If he had not looked lately into a softer pair of eyes, if he had not felt the touch of a warmer hand, if, in short, he had never met Olivia Denison, he would have gone on comfortably in his platonic worship of the only woman of his acquaintance who had any of those elements of beauty and grace which were necessary to his somewhat fastidious standard. But the advent of the beautiful, warm-hearted, impulsive young girl had changed all that; and Vernon, as he remembered the promises he had made to his brother and his brother’s wife, and recognized clearly enough that by the circumstances of his life he was bound to remain in bachelor loneliness, felt that the burden of a bygone sin was heavier upon him than he could bear.
He was going gloomily down the hill, and had nearly reached the foot of it, when a rather rough voice, with an inflection which was un-English and strange, addressed him quite close to his ear.
“Could you oblige me with a light?”
Vernon, who had his pipe between his lips, stopped, and offered the stranger his matchbox. The night was dark, but he was able to recognize in this abrupt-mannered person the man he and Meredith had seen that evening leaning on the garden wall of the cottage adjoining the Vicarage. There had been something suspicious about the stranger’s manner then; there was something more now. He took the proffered matchbox, struck a light, and, instead of applying it to the cigar he had ready in his mouth, held it close enough to Vernon’s face to get a good view of every feature.
The clergyman, returning his gaze, grew deadly pale. He did not flinch, however, but settling his face with the hard determination of a man accustomed to bear pain, submitted to the scrutiny in dogged silence.
“Thank you,” said the stranger slowly, as he threw away the match, which had burnt down, and struck another, with which he proceeded to light his cigar. “You are the first person about here who has shown what in other parts we should call common civility. A rough lot, these Yorkshiremen!”