“Told me? Of course not! Do you suppose I’d let him take the tone with me that I need any favours? I’d like to hear him tell me I’m in want of assistance!”
“I don’t see why he shouldn’t—at the pace you go yourself. You say it to every one.”
“To every one? I say it to you and to George Littlemore—when I get nervous. I say it to you because I like you, and to him because I’m afraid of him. I’m not in the least afraid of you, by the way. I’m all alone—I haven’t got any one. I must have some comfort, mustn’t I? Sir Arthur scolded me for putting you off last night—he noticed it; and that was what made me guess his idea.”
“I’m much obliged to him,” said Waterville rather bewildered.
“So mind you answer for me. Don’t you want me to take your arm to go in?”
“You’re a most extraordinary combination!” he gave to all the winds as she stood smiling at him.
“Oh come, don’t you fall in love with me!” she cried with a laugh; and, without taking his arm, she passed in before him.
That evening, before he went to dress for dinner, he wandered into the library, where he felt certain he should find some superior bindings. There was no one in the room and he spent a happy half-hour among treasures of old reading and triumphs of old morocco. He had a great esteem for good literature, he held that it should have handsome covers. The daylight had begun to wane, but whenever, in the rich-looking dimness, he made out the glimmer of a well-gilded back, he took down the volume and carried it to one of the deep-set windows. He had just finished the inspection of a delightfully fragrant folio, and was about to carry it back to its niche, when he found himself face to face with Lady Demesne. He was sharply startled, for her tall slim figure, her preserved fairness, which looked white in the high brown room, and the air of serious intention with which she presented herself, all gave something spectral to her presence. He saw her countenance dimly light, however, and heard her say with the vague despair of her neutrality: “Are you looking at our books? I’m afraid they’re rather dull.”
“Dull? Why they’re as bright as the day they were bound.” And he turned on her the glittering panels of his folio.
“I’m afraid I haven’t looked at them for a long time,” she murmured, going nearer to the window, where she stood looking out. Beyond the clear pane the park stretched away, the menace of night already mantling the great limbs of the oaks. The place appeared cold and empty, and the trees had an air of conscious importance, as if Nature herself had been bribed somehow to take the side of county families. Her ladyship was no easy person for talk; spontaneity had never come to her, and to express herself might have been for her modesty like some act of undressing in public. Her very simplicity was conventional, though it was rather a noble convention. You might have pitied her for the sense of her living tied so tight, with consequent moral cramps, to certain rigid ideals. This made her at times seem tired, like a person who had undertaken too much. She said nothing for a moment, and there was an appearance of design in her silence, as if she wished to let him know she had appealed to him without the trouble of announcing it. She had been accustomed to expect people would suppose things, to save her questions and explanations. Waterville made some haphazard remark about the beauty of the evening—in point of fact the weather had changed for the worse—to which she vouchsafed no reply. But she presently said with her usual gentleness: “I hoped I should find you here—I should like to ask you something.”