Grimshaw was confounded, as he stared at her, and instantly he, too, became the prey of mental civil war. Doubt assailed him. He was racked by the tormenting thought that his judgment had been cruelly at fault. Conscious that he had risen to opportunity, that he had soared high above mean and material considerations, he seemed to be looking down upon his beloved grovelling in the dust of the ages—dust of that dust—disintegrating before his eyes——! Impetuously he spoke:
“I can, of course, leave Upworthy.”
Lady Selina hesitated, but not for long. She observed coldly:
“Under the circumstances, Mr. Grimshaw, that is the wise thing to do.”
The hypercritical may affirm that it was not, under the circumstances, the wise thing for a mother to say, inasmuch as it forced into action an apparently apathetic and dazed creature. For the moment, Cicely remained as before. Then, with a sharp exclamation, she stood up—revitalised, quickened incredibly. She seemed to Grimshaw to expand from a girl into a woman, a complete individuality, self-reliant, capable, almost dominating; the new Cicely, the daughter of strenuous times, born of them, exulting in them, as fresh as Aphrodite when she rose from the waves.
“I shall go with him.”
Swiftly she crossed to his side, lifting a radiant face to his. Then she addressed her mother, speaking very softly, but clearly, with enchanting tenderness.
“I love him as devotedly as he loves me.”
Lady Selina shivered, as if seized by a rigor. In a pathological sense this had indeed happened. A rigor of the mind caused a sort of collapse. She lay back in her chair, closing her eyes. Cicely hastened to her.
“Mother, this is a dreadful surprise to you. But you love me, don’t you? You won’t be unkind?”