“I remember,” said Colville to his companion, “that I have an introduction to the pastor of the village, who, if I am not mistaken, is even now contemplating opening a conversation. It was given to me by my banker in Paris, who is a Suffolk man. You remember, Marquis, John Turner, of the Rue Lafayette?”
“Yes—yes,” answered the Marquis, absently. He was still watching the retreating villagers, with eyes old and veiled by the trouble that they had seen.
“I will take this opportunity of presenting myself,” said Colville, who was watching the little group from the rectory without appearing to do so. He rose as he spoke and went toward the clergyman, who was probably much younger than he looked. For he was ill-dressed and ill-shorn, with straggling grey hair hanging to his collar. He had a musty look, such as a book may have that is laid on a shelf in a deserted room and never opened or read. Septimus Marvin, the world would say, had been laid upon a shelf when he was inducted to the spiritual cure of Farlingford. But no man is ever laid on a shelf by Fate. He climbs up there of his own will, and lies down beneath the dust of forgetfulness because he lacks the heart to arise and face the business of life.
Seeing that Dormer Colville was approaching him, he came forward with a certain scholarly ease of manner as if he had once mixed with the best on an intellectual equality.
Colville’s manners were considered perfect, especially by those who were unable to detect a fine line said to exist between ease and too much ease. Mr. Marvin recollected John Turner well. Ten years earlier he had, indeed, corresponded at some length with the Paris banker respecting a valuable engraving. Was Mr. Colville interested in engravings? Colville confessed to a deep and abiding pleasure in this branch of art, tempered, he admitted with a laugh, by a colossal ignorance. He then proceeded to give the lie to his own modesty by talking easily and well of mezzotints and etchings.
“But,” he said, interrupting himself with evident reluctance, “I am forgetting my obligations. Let me present to you my companion, an old friend, the Marquis de Gemosac.”
The two gentlemen bowed, and Mr. Marvin, knowing no French, proceeded to address the stranger in good British Latin, after the manner of the courtly divines of his day. Which Latin, from its mode of pronunciation, was entirely unintelligible to its hearer.
In return, the rector introduced the two strangers to his niece, Miriam Liston.
“The mainstay of my quiet house,” he added, with his vague and dreamy smile.
“I have already heard of you,” said Dormer Colville at once, with his modest deference, “from my cousin, Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence.”