“Well, we considered—and justly, I think—that coming here unmarried, we had a right to the excitement of choosing him a wife. But in a letter from his sister to Mrs Hastings, who is, you know, her old friend, she seems to hint that he is taking it on his own shoulders.”
“Oh, ho! Any names mentioned? Perhaps Jack may know her, too.”
“No, no, not so bad as that. Still it is bad, I own. You’ll look at those horses then, won’t you?”
“To be sure. How was it you weren’t at the Grange on Friday?”
“I was making up my accounts. I always think that is only a decent tribute to the departing year. Remember me to Lady Ibbetson, and do try to consider that horse a treasure.”
Sir John, who liked the Wards, went on talking of the way women were taken in about horses, Jack meanwhile riding along without hearing many of his father’s words. So it had come to this, for he could not doubt that Phillis was the one to whom Miss Penington alluded. There was the pretty Vicarage to his left, standing picturesquely among trees, a pleasant homelike place, such as he could well imagine she would love. He thought of her, brought there by that man, going in and out of the gate on her kindly errands, waiting, perhaps, in the porch to welcome him—Well, what could he say? He had had his chance and had thrown it away. Since he had loved her, he had understood very clearly what she had found wanting in his love before. Now it seemed to him as if it had been an insult. He felt no hope. He had had his chance and had thrown it away.