It was impossible not to contrast her kind and deferential manner with the cold, collected bearing of Miss Douglas, who entered the room, like a queen about to hold her court, rather than a loving maiden, hurrying to meet her lord.
She had always been remarkable for quiet dignity in motion or repose.
It was one of the many charms on which the General lavished his admiration, but he could have dispensed with this royal composure now. It seemed a little out of place in their relative positions. Also he would have liked to see the colour deepen in her proud impassive face, though his honest heart ached while he reflected how the bright tints had faded of late, how the glory of her beauty had departed, leaving her always pale and saddened now.
He would have asked a leading question, hazarded a gentle reproach, or in some way made allusion to the arrival of his bête noir, but her altered looks disarmed him; and it was Satanella herself who broached the subject, by quietly informing her visitor she had just returned from riding the black mare in the Park. "Do you mind?" she added, rising in some confusion to pull a blind down, while she spoke.
Here would have been an opportunity for a confession of jealousy, an appeal to her feelings, pleadings, promises, protestations,—to use the General's own metaphor,—"an attack along the whole line;" but how was he thus to offer decisive battle, with his flank exposed and threatened, with Mrs. Lushington's ears wide open and attentive, while her pen went scribble, scribble, almost in the same room?
"I mind everything you do," said he gallantly, "and object to nothing! If I did want to get up a grievance, I should quarrel with you for not ordering me to parade in attendance on you in the Park. My time, as you know, is always yours, and I am never so happy as with you. Blanche (dropping his voice), I am never really happy when you are out of my sight."
She glanced towards the writing-table, and though the folding-doors, half-shut, concealed that lady's person, seemed glad to observe, by the continual scratching of a pen, that Mrs. Lushington had not yet finished her note.
"You are always good and kind," said Blanche, forcing a smile. "Far more than I deserve. Will you ride another day, early? Thanks; I knew you would. I should have asked you this morning but I had a headache, and thought I should only be a bore. Besides, I expected you in the afternoon. Then Clara came to luncheon, and we went upstairs, and now the carriage will be round in five minutes. That is the way the day goes by; yet it seems very long too, only not so bad as the night."
Again his face fell. It was uphill work, he thought. Surely women were not usually so difficult to woo, or his own memory played him false, and his friends romanced unpardonably in their narratives. But, nevertheless, in all the prizes of life that which seemed fairest and best hung highest out of reach, and he would persevere to the end. Aye! even if he should fail at last!
Miss Douglas seemed to possess some intuitive knowledge of his intention; and conscious of his determination to overcome them, was perhaps the more disposed to throw difficulties in his path. He should have remembered that in love as in war, a rapid flank movement and complete change of tactics will often prevail, when vigilance, endurance, and honest courage have been tried in vain.