“O yes, you must. Still—I don’t know—I am afraid there will be something different, and I dare say you will have forgotten all about us.”
“I am sure I shall never forget,—how could I?” said Mr Warren, turning very red, and almost stammering in his eagerness. “I have met with so much kindness in this house, I do not believe I shall be so happy anywhere as I have been in Underham.”
“O, but you will live in the country, and in such a beautiful place!” Ada said, shaking her curl, and sighing involuntarily as she thought of what her lot might have been.
“I like a sociable place like this better,” said the young fellow honestly, “and as to that, it’s the people—”
He stopped suddenly, with a perception that Anthony was sitting and looking grimly at him. He had a soft heart, and the idea of going away from Ada was solidifying his feelings, which had hitherto scarcely taken shape beyond the amusement of the moment, so that for the first time it gave him an actual pang to remember that the real separation lay in this engagement of Ada’s. One or two discoveries were made in that moment. Anthony awakened to the perception that another mistake must be added to the list, and it was a mistake which, whatever may be a man’s feelings, is sure to gall him. An apparently transparent affection, such as Ada’s, had been grateful to him at a time when he was very sore with all the world, and the fact of this soreness and of his own changed position gave it an air of reality which he had never thought of questioning. Even if he had discovered that her heart held no great depths, what was there he believed to be all his own; and Mr Warren would have been the last person presented to his thoughts as a possible rival until now, when Ada’s manner and sudden change from gloom to gaiety made him very wroth, with the anger not of jealousy, but of wounded pride. Nor did his own failure towards her soften him, for he satisfied himself by thinking that he had at least told her the truth, and put the matter into her own choice, while she had deliberately deceived him by liking this young idiot, and showing her preference unblushingly the instant the fellow’s position was changed. Anthony’s face grew blacker and blacker, and Ada, perhaps desirous of driving him to desperation, put out all her charms for Mr Warren. There was a certain comfortable prettiness about the room, about the cheerful colouring, and the big fire which looked brighter and brighter as the afternoon shortened, and in the midst of it all one of those half-absurd, half-tragic complications, which sometimes seem to get inextricably knotted round a life. Anthony jumped up at last.
“I am glad your headache is better,” he said shortly.
“Are you going? Good bye, then,” said Ada, in an indifferent voice.
He stood still, and looked at her for a moment, so that her eyes fell under his. But she recovered herself immediately, and glanced up as if she were waiting for him to speak. He said no more, however, but went out of the room, Sniff barking with delight the instant he found himself safely in the hall.
As he walked home, his feelings could scarcely be called enviable, the less so because, turn which way he would, there seemed no line of action which he could take. It was impossible for him to find fault with Ada, who, indeed, had done nothing against which he could bring a serious complaint; it was more manner than words, and to fall foul of manner requires a lover’s quarrel, and a lover’s quarrel a lover. He could no more go seriously to Ada and blame her than he could fight smoke with a sword. And after his one failure he said to himself that come what would there should be no further attempt on his part to loosen the bond which bound them to each other. But he was very miserable. For until now he had felt that, although the deepest love was wanting which happiest marriages need, something they both had towards a happiness which, if not the greatest, might serve instead,—on her part a simple unreasoning affection, on his a certain gratitude and tenderness. He had not thought of these failing until this new turn of the wheel. Now he could no longer feel the gentle kindliness to which he had trusted as the foundation of a moderate happiness; and even at that, insufficient as it once seemed, he looked back as a drowning man looks at the harsh rock from which he has been torn. He could do nothing except wait, and there was a passiveness about his future which made it seem utterly dark and hateful to poor Anthony.
As he came near the Red House, the day brightened in some degree; the faint beauty of the sun had gained strength, little cold lovelinesses were creeping into life, a poor little pool of water was shining away, and a scarlet glory of berries flamed from the hedge where a tiny wren slipped in and out, scarcely moving the grass. Mr Robert was just riding out of the gate, and pulled up to greet Anthony.