It was also hinted that the dead man was highly connected—but the magnificent in their high places kept a frigid silence that showed a dogged decision to bear their loss unflinchingly.
Indeed, on the evening of the day on which the dead man was put to his rest for the last time by the silent girl and the handsome youth who had so often shared the task in the small hours of the morning when the unknowing world snored and slept, it was, truth to say, a somewhat vulgar little knot of city men that sat round the table of The Cock and Bull tavern and passed a silk hat round about to collect the little sum that one of them was deputed to take to the girl herself with a vote of their respect and affection for a dead friend and as true a gentleman as any into whom the good God had put good wine.
CHAPTER XXVI
Wherein Tom Folly blunders along in his Self-centred Gig—and drags a Dainty Little Lady’s Skirts into the Wheel
Anthony fretted at the death of the Major—fretted at the publicity—fretted at the time of the man’s dying, and the manner; for he had decided to appeal to Betty not to spoil Noll’s prospects, now so suddenly brightening, by getting him entangled in a childish engagement. But Modeyne’s death made it wholly indecent to approach the already so indecent subject for some time; made it in any case the more difficult to broach at all; made it also more urgent that it should be approached. And, to fret the will with further indecision, Anthony, his eyes intent upon the pale girl in the simple black gown, and balked by the strange gravity that had settled upon the slim dainty figure, perceived the exquisite approach, the delicate fragrance and most subtle atmosphere of the coming of womanhood—an atmosphere which made it doubly difficult for him to commit himself to putting into the brutality of speech what cost him shame even in the thinking.
Had he only taken Caroline into his scheme, he would not have blundered thus clumsily into a brutality; but he did not—and, with his fatal capacity for not leaving well alone, fretting impatiently through the keen bitter winds of March and the early days of April, he at last brought himself to the pitch of seeing the girl alone and making his appeal.
When Anthony knocked at the door and entered her room, she arose, with a smile, to greet him; and he found himself mute.
She was so comely, this slender girl of fifteen years, so debonair—as is meet and fit in the young of the most beautiful of all created things. The brown hair, tied with a ribbon at the nape of the white neck, showed the great beauty of the shapely head; and he knew that the soul within the delicate body was the most mystically beautiful of all. He realized that the slightest cruelty would leave harsh scars. Yet he did not withhold himself from the brutalities.