“I took what I was given,” he said, a little shortly, and at that moment Ada spied Mr Warren, and invited him graciously to accompany them. It turned out that he had no ticket, and Anthony immediately offered his own.
“Then I shall go back to the hall,” he said, “for Pelham is going to speak, and one does not often get such an opportunity.”
“That will be a capital plan,” said Ada. Winifred could not tell whether she were vexed or not. To her own relief they had reached the end of the street, and there was a little separation; the concert people went one way, the Chesters another, Anthony went back to his lecturing. Just as they parted Winifred asked for Marion.
“She is better, thank you,” he said gravely. “She has been very ill, but we hope it will all go well now.”
“I did not know she had been ill,” said Winifred. She could not avoid a reproachful jar in her voice, and the feeling that her lot was harder than Anthony’s, since she met distrust from him, and he only from an indifferent world. “Does he think we are made of stone?” she said, walking away with a sad heart. Perhaps she was not far wrong. For Anthony’s was a nature which such a blow as he had received, anything indeed which shook his faith in himself or in others, would have a disposition to harden, and all that was about him would certainly take its colouring from himself. He was letting his sympathies dry up, almost forcing them back out of their channels, and was ceasing to believe in any broader or more genial flow in others. People are not so much to us what they are as what we see them, so that there are some for whom the world must be full of terrible companions.
And with poor Anthony the colouring he laid on at this time was cold and grey enough. Every gleam of brightness lay behind him in the old days which had suddenly grown a lifetime apart,—school, college, home, where on all sides he was the most popular, the most brilliant, the most full of life. And now—old friends had failed him, old hopes had been killed, old aims seemed unreal, old dreams foolishness. The saddest part of it all was that he was making even his dreariest fancies truth. There are few friendships that will stand the test of one dropping away from the bond: as to hopes and dreams and aims, they too become what a man makes them,—no less and no more. He was beginning to feel with impatient weariness that his engagement was not fulfilling even the moderate amount of contentment which he had expected. He had never professed to himself any overwhelming passion of love for Ada, but he had turned to her when he was sore and wroth with all the world, and it had seemed to him as if here were a little haven of moderate calm. If he had loved her better he would have felt as if she had a right to demand more, but I doubt whether this ever troubled him. With an older man also the experiment might have succeeded better, but his life was too young, and as yet too full of mute yearnings, for a reaction not to follow. It was not that clear-sightedness was awakened in him: the girl’s character was just one which the dullest woman would have fathomed, and scarcely a man have read rightly,—it was rather a cloudy dissatisfaction, a weariness, a consciousness that neither touched the other nor ever would, a sense of failure. No thought of escape was haunting him, he had a vague impression that his destiny might for a time be delayed, but meanwhile his destiny stood before him, and he knew that he was moving towards it, whether with willing or reluctant steps.
Of Winifred he thought very little. He did not choose to think of her. If ever there had been a day when it had seemed as if she might have become a part of his life, that day was gone like many another day. She and the world were against him, and if his own heart had been on that side, poor Anthony in his desperation would have fought against them,—heart and all. It would all come to an end some time, and meanwhile—Well, meanwhile he could go on towards the end.
As he walked down the old street under the flags, a sudden brightening of sunshine lit up the gay fluttering colours, a fresh breeze was blowing, the houses had irregular lines, rich bits of carving, black woodwork,—an odd sort of mediaeval life quietly kept, as it were, above the buying and selling and coming and going: now and then a narrow opening would disclose some little crooked passage, narrow, and ill-paved with stones which many a generation had worn down; while between the gables you might catch a glimpse of the soft darkness of the old Cathedral rising out of the green turf, trees from which a yellow leaf or two was sweeping softly down, a misty, tender autumnal sky, figures passing with a kind of grave busy idleness. There was a band marching up the street, and at the corner Anthony met Mr Wood, of the Grange, and at the same moment Mr Robert Mannering.
“Glad to see you,” said the latter, ignoring the younger man’s evident desire to hurry on. “You’re the very couple I should have chosen to run my head against, for Charles never rested until he had made Pelham and Smith, and half a dozen of their like, engage to dine with us to-morrow, and they’ll certainly not be content with me for a listener, so take pity, both of you, will you? Half past seven, unless they give us a terribly long-winded afternoon, and then Mrs Jones will be in a rage, and woe betide us!”
“No, no,” said Mr Wood, shaking his head, and going on. “Don’t expect me. I’ve just had a dose of Smith, and his long words frighten me. They don’t seem quite tame.”